Belle Glade nursing students educate children on tobacco's dangers
Fourteen first semester nursing students at PBCC Belle Glade took a giant step forward in service learning this spring by volunteering to participate in a pilot tobacco education program for elementary students at four area schools.
The students were trained in the tobacco education program by Marilyn Leeds, Director of Tobacco Education and Cessation Services for the Everglades Area Health Education Center (EAHEC) in West Palm Beach. They learned how to communicate and present the material to elementary and middle school students. Beverly Robinson, Belle Glade campus provost, initiated the EAHEC and nursing student program partnership.
Working in teams of four, the nursing program students gave a 45-minute interactive demonstration on the effects smoking has on the body to sixth grade students at Moorehaven, Lake Shore, Gove and Pahokee elementary schools.
To demonstrate how smoking affects lung capacity, for example, the students had the children run in place for one minute. Then they had the children repeat the exercise, but this time had them breathe only through a straw, to show a heavy smoker's breathing capacity.
Another exercise had a group of five children standing inside a rope lasso placed on the floor. The lasso represented a healthy blood vessel: as the rope was made smaller, it forced the children to bunch closer and closer until they could no longer fit inside. This helped them visualize firsthand how smoking causes blood vessels to constrict and eventually block off blood flow, also known as vasoconstriction. The children also were shown how smoking prematurely ages the skin, teeth and gums through hands-on exercises and a multimedia program.
The Florida AHEC is a partnership between program offices based at each of the state's five medical schools and ten regionally based centers. The AHEC provides a variety of programs designed to promote preventative health, wellness and increased access to health care in underserved communities.