2025-01-31

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This week, we started our plan for the outreach project for this semester. I have the opportunity to go to the lower campus and teach the second-grade class about the importance of having good dental health. I am going to do two hands-on projects with them. The first one will include the students chewing a chewable red tablet that temporarily stains areas of plaque on their teeth. This will allow them to visually identify spots they may have missed while brushing in the morning, helping them recognize the importance of thorough cleaning. The next activity that we will do is demonstrate using hard-boiled eggs soaked in soda to mimic the staining and plaque buildup that occurs when teeth are not brushed properly. Students will then use toothbrushes to clean the eggs and compare the results of brushing versus not brushing. I will also share a presentation helping describe the benefits and how to brush your teeth correctly. I am so excited to be able to do this with them!

The next thing we did this week was create infographics and present them to our classmates. I was able to research Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis and find the symptoms, vaccines, and some cool facts about this type of disease. I really enjoyed making this infographic. It was fun and pretty simple to do. One of the cool facts I learned from my disease was that diphtheria vaccines protect people against diphtheria. Most types of diphtheria vaccines protect against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (whooping cough). It is cool that it protects you against all three of these things. I am also going to share some of the things my classmates shared with us.

Avery talked about Hepatitis B and shared that Asian Americans are at the most risk for receiving this, according to the CDC. I thought it was cool that there are certain ethnicities that are at higher risk. I wonder why it is this way. Next, Hannah taught about the measles, mumps, and rubella. She shared that the CDC wants to get all communities to get around 95% of vaccines to help an outbreak start. How will the CDC be able to control this? One of the other classmates I heard from was Sophia. She talked about polio and how this virus affects young boys rather than young girls. I learned so much about these different viruses from my other classmates.