Student Contributor -M. Cranmer
For this project we partnered with the Spokane Fire Department to talk about fire safety with our 3rd graders. Firefighters and the Community Risk Reduction Manager had a presentation on fire safety. After the presentation students learned about and explored the fire engine and gave the station a thank you sign.
During this partnership students got to engage and interact with their local fire station. The Spokane Fire Department informed students on common causes of house fire, ways to prevent them, and what it takes to be a firefighter. Students were given the opportunity to go inside the fire engine and learned about the equipment used during emergencies. As a gratitude for all the hard work and risk firefights go through on daily basis, students wrote a thank you sign for their dedication. This provided a service to our community by showing students appreciation for the work firefighters do and informing students how to prevent future fires and how to respond in case of a fire. Many students said they had fun learning about fire safety and enjoyed meeting the firefighters because it made them less intimidating. A student even said they want to become a fire fighter one day.
Planning this project was easy once I had discovered which station responded to our school. The people I communicated with along the way were friendly, willing, and excited to visit our school. I coordinated with our custodian to ensure we could use our cafeteria weeks in advance and to make we were not conflicting with any other events. On the day of the event we had to modify the plan because the firefighters received a call shortly before arriving at our school. The Community Risk Reduction Manager had to start the presentation without the firefighters. Sometimes duty calls and you must be prepared in case it happens. Make sure to have a back-up plan in case the firefighters or the manager are unable to make it due to an emergency.
I worked with the Spokane Fire Department as well. I taught students what firefighters do since most of them thought they only put out fires! We started by watching some videos and I read a few books that were age appropriate for my first graders. After we knew a little more about what firefighters do for our community, we talked about how the local fire station comes to the school for drills which got the students very excited. I printed out a badge outline for students to put on red construction paper where they wrote a letter to firefighters thanking them for their bravery and hard work in our community! Most students drew pictures as well inside the badge and we gave them to the fire station closest to the school.