HELENA, Mont. — From pottery to soil samples, CR Anderson eighth graders are learning that environmental health can start right at home. As part of a collaboration with the Department of Public Health and Human Services, they’re exploring where lead exposure can happen and how testing can help identify potential risks.
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“What we are finding is the students we have, these eighth graders, have never even heard of Flint, Michigan, so when we talk about lead it is just not a big deal to them, and so for them to learn there are some environmental hazards out there we need to think about,” said Mary Anderson, an environmental health program specialist at DPHHS.
DPHHS says education, blood lead testing and awareness of potential sources of lead can help Montana families protect their children.
In the classroom Thursday, students brought in their own soil samples to be tested with an X-ray fluorescence analyzer to learn if they have lead exposure at home.
“I think the most important thing is learning how children would get impacted by lead poisoning and how safe they need to be with everything that they do,” eighth grader Evan Lubick said.
But that exposure is not just in the soil. It’s in many things all around us, like older paint, toys and roads, and can have some major health impacts in young children.
“What happens if you are lead poisoned is going to affect mostly your nervous system, so your brain; it can affect hearing and speech; it also affects even at low levels of lead poisoning it affects your IQ and creates learning problems later on,” Anderson said.
The lesson is continuing outside of the classroom with a history lesson on pottery and how lead use in the art medium has changed over the years.
“Just having that idea of where lead comes from and that it is in everything we do, just having that knowledge and know-how. Then, just being at the Archie Bray, I always want my kids to express themselves and try new things,” CR Anderson art teacher James Hogan said.
The lessons are part of an effort to raise awareness during Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Week, which runs from Oct. 26 through Oct. 30.
