SOS: Save Our Students
By:
Josie Benningfield
One of the most crowded parts of STLP gatherings, tend to be the showcases. Many young students contributing to and helping their schools, communities, and local organizations flood the room, and it’s easy to lose yourself in the heart warming presentations and work of these people. While I saw many projects that have made my day, one really popped out to me.
At Mullins Elementary, located in Pike County, some very great people have started a project to renew student safety. They decided that a simple one minute safety drill to practice earthquake safety wasn’t enough. An idea was created. Their idea was to make a video about earthquake security. Students around them began to recognize the video, and it helped students perform faster during drills. They did not stop there.
After deciding to create another video for safety awareness, they found the right topic. Kindergarteners watched a video hosted by Winnie the Poo teaching bus instructions. When you’re in fifth grade, videos made for small children to make them follow bus safety would not matter to the memories of these older students. The idea struck like lightning. A handful of students would create a video of a short rap, designed to stick in the heads of people around them. The topic of this short song was bus safety. It would be more relatable for older students, and it also proved to be more popular within the student body.
A project was born, one led by four students and the help of teachers and some parents. It impacted the school and the community around them, and made learning safety in school more fun for everybody. This shows that with the hard work of students who know and can relate to the circumstances of safety in school, can make a great and simple video that can make other attempted trials with safety instructions seem so little in comparison of their homemade and potentially lifesaving videos.