Thursday, November 1, 2018
VOLUME 1 I ISSUE 18
MERIDIANSOURCE.CA
Students focus on eye-injury risks GEOFF LEE
WRITER
.................................. Actual photos of a fish hook in an eye and a chainsaw cut to an eye helped Grade 9 students at E.S. Laird Middle School understand the risks of not wearing protective eye wear. CNIB in partnership with WorkSafe Saskatchewan sponsored two tough love presentations in the school library on Oct. 25 to promote workplace safety and eye-injury prevention. The message is clearly applicable to E.S. Laird students who work in science labs and industrial arts (IA) shops. Science and IA teacher Teresa Stene says it’s quite difficult to convince students to continually wear their eye protection, especially in the industrial arts lab. “They want to take their protection off when using power tools and forget to put them back on. I just think it’s really important that they learn to behave safety,” she said. “At this age students
Geoff Lee Meridian Source
Mindy Bodnarchuk, Child and Family Services Counsellor from CNIB, centre, is flanked by E.S. Laird Middle School Grade 9 students Micah Penill, left, and Tag Boyson right, wearing safety glasses that Bodnarchuk handed out following her eye safety presentation last Thursday. Students wear safety glasses in the Industrial Arts shop.
think they are invincible and they’re not, so we want them to be aware of the consequences.” Presenter Mindy Bodnarchuk, a child and family services counsellor from CNIB says she would ask students who think it’s not cool to wear safety glasses if they would rather lose their vision. Experience has taught her it is impor-
tant to showcase a few different eye injuries to students from chemical spills and metal shards to UV exposure in her presentation. “We find that showcasing their eye injuries, it does let students know it can happen to them,” said Bodnarchuk. “It shows you have to protect your eyes; you’ve got two of them and once your vision is
gone it’s gone for good in some cases.” The message definitely got through to Tag Boyson who says safety glasses are worn for his IA wood shop and welding classes. “I’m definitely going t o w e ar t he m all t he time after that presentation,” he said. According to CNIB more than 25,000 Saskatchewan residents are
blind or have only partial sight and they want people to know 100 per cent of eye injuries are avoidable with the use of proper eye protection. CNIB is committed to reducing the number of eye injuries by 50 per cent by the year 2020. Bodnarchuk brought two boxes of safety glasses and sunglasses for the school to use to go with some safety
goggles that were purchased for the IA lab last year. Stene says the goggles are clear and students can see nicely through them, but they don’t always want to wear them because of the “looking cool” factor. She is hoping that will change following the graphic presentation by Bodnarchuk. “I found it’s beneficial to have an exterior authority come in and say ‘here are the real risks of what you are doing and here’s what we’ve seen in the province of Saskatchewan’ hitting close to home,” said Stene. The message definitely increased the safety awareness of student Micah Penill who also takes IA shop. “I learned how important eye safety is and the preventions you can use so your eyes don’t get damaged,” she said. As for other students who don’t wear their safety glasses because they don’t think it’s cool she said, “Well, I hope their eyes don’t get hurt.”