Injury Prevention and Safety
Grade 7 - 8
Overview
Health education teachers, administrators, and other educators play an important role in supporting students to learn the knowledge and skills necessary for injury prevention and safety. This content area includes the important topic of violence. Violence is a serious public health issue in our country. According to the CDC (2017a), youth violence refers to harmful behaviors leading to injury or death that begin in childhood. Various behaviors such as bullying, physical abuse such as hitting or slapping, sexual violence and harassment, electronic aggression, and gang and gun violence all fall under the scope of violence. A young person can be subjected to abuse, the perpetuator of abuse, a witness to the violence, or all of these. Those who survive violence often have lasting emotional trauma associated with the violence (CDC 2017a). Applying a standards-based curriculum focused on violence prevention skills and competencies can support the overall goal of preventing youth violence.
Information and Resources
Smokey Bear - Wildfire Prevention
Join Smokey Bear and learn how to prevent forest fires! Information and Resources on wildfire prevention from the U.S. Forest Service (USFS).
The National Safety Council
The National Safety Council is America’s leading nonprofit safety advocate. We focus on eliminating the leading causes of preventable injuries and deaths.
PhotoVoice
PhotoVoice works to build a world in which everybody has the opportunity to represent themselves and tell their own story.
Students Against Violence Everywhere
SAVE (Students Against Violence Everywhere) Promise Clubs are a place for young people across the country to show their leadership, creativity, and passion for protecting their friends, schools, and communities from violence before it happens.
Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) in Student-Athletes - CIF
The California Interscholastic Federation provides Information and resources on Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) in Student-Athletes
Curriculum and Lessons
PACER’s National Bullying Prevention Center
Founded in 2006, PACER’s National Bullying Prevention Center actively leads social change to prevent childhood bullying, so that all youth are safe and supported in their schools, communities, and online.
Fire Prevention and Safety Middle School Resources
A complete language arts and science curriculum for grades 6–8. Students take on the role of forensic investigators in this program designed for the science classroom.
Everything You Need to Teach Digital Citizenship and Well-Being - Common Sense Media
Help students take ownership of their digital lives. All students need digital citizenship skills to participate fully in their communities and make smart choices online and in life.
Sandy Hook Promise: Start With Hello and Say Something Programs
Sandy Hook Promise’s Know the Signs programs effectively teach youth and adults how to prevent school violence, shootings, and other harmful acts.
Youville (FTC)
Welcome to Youville! Youville is a free, downloadable, educational program to help children ages 8-12 develop skills to be safer online.
Book List
Grade 7 - 8
Partnerships
Partnering with the Family
- Working with their parent, guardian, caretaker, or other trusted adult, students discover possible home safety issues by using select items or sections from the CDC’s “Healthy Housing Manual” to assess the health and safety of their home and environment. Parents who speak languages other than English may need the manual translated into those languages (ensure translation accuracy). From this home-safety assessment, students and their families can create a personal or family safety plan
Partnering with your School
- No Name Calling Week occurs every January around the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday and is inspired by the young adult novel The Misfits by James Howe. The story highlights the struggles of four students trying to survive seventh grade while being taunted for their height, weight, intelligence, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
- Consider hosting a student-led campus-wide No Name Calling or Anti-Bully week at your school to address bullying and harassment.
- Visit the No Name Calling week or StopBullying website for inspiration, lesson plans, and resources.
- Work with school librarian or media center staff to create a book display on a safety topic with input from students on book selections
Partnering with your Community
- Students develop a collective list of activities they are interested in or careers they may aspire to and draft invitation letters to contacts at local agencies.
- Students write career aspiration papers based on the speaker’s content