High School Student Recognizes Importance of Poison Education

High School projects can sometimes be daunting tasks, but the hope is always that the students learn and grow from these projects. For one junior at Carnegie Vanguard High School in Houston, poison control became the focus of her Texas Performance Standards Research project for the year and made her realize the importance of poison safety.

When Grace Vollmers chose her project, she set out to address poison education and learning about the different types of poisonings in relations to poisonous plants.

“I originally wasn’t planning on going into poison education,” she said. “At first, I was only really interested in the science of poisons, especially poisonous plants. After doing some research on accidental poisoning statistics, it struck me that this information was never really covered in elementary school.”

That’s when Grace set out to create some new curriculum for elementary students. She wanted them to learn about the dangers of poisons and how to stay poison-free. She learned that accidental poisonings are one of the leading causes of death especially for young children.

Over the yearlong project, Grace created curriculum for first, second, third, fourth and fifth grade students. She utilized look-a-like activities, scenario activities, and hidden poisonings coloring pages. She also created word searches, word jumbles, a PSA activity and group discussion activities. Each of the activities she created are geared toward the specific age group and they are not only fun but also useful for teaching about poisons.

“Through the course of my project I really learned to appreciate the patience and understanding that elementary school teachers have,” Grace said. “I hope that my product will serve as a valuable resource for schools and teachers in the future, and that it will shed some insight into how to better educate and protect children from the dangers of accidental poisonings.”

Interested in finding out more about Grace’s project? Check out her website at the following link and let her know what you think of her project: http://gracevollmers.wix.com/poisonsafetytpsp#!activities/c10d6.

Looking for information on poison control or accidental poisonings? Visit www.poisoncontrol.org today for more information. If you or a loved one might have been poisoned, please do not hesitate to contact the Texas Poison Center Network at 1-800-222-1222.