Hearing CPR or First Aid aren’t words that make me jump for joy (or my students) when they hear it. But learning these vital life saving things is so incredibly important. At the end of teaching this most of my students will tell you they enjoyed this and feel so much more empowered being introduced to these life saving skills. So how do I do it?
Thankfully there are so many wonderful resources for this! I use StudentCPR.com which offers free training videos for students! It covers background information, heart attacks, strokes, child/adult cpr, AED use, choking and other first aid information. I do add my own first aid information which I will get to later. This website is AMAZING. It allows each student to make their own account where they could watch the videos independently then take the post test where they have to score an 80% or better to get “certified”. I don’t have my students watch on their own because I don’t want to give them homework and I like being able to discuss as we watch. So, we watch them in class. I will do an activity that is cardio related then watch a few videos a day. You could easily do them all in a class or 2 depending on how long yours are if you wanted to knock them out. I also created guided notes (https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/CPR-Guided-Notes-10581156?utm_source=EAA%20Blog&utm_campaign=CPR%20Blog%20Post) to go right along with the videos to help students keep vital information in front of them. You could also easily use these notes without the videos!
After we have finished the videos we practice with CPR dummies. I am lucky enough that our nurses have them and we borrow for the time being. Every student takes turns showing me their skills on the adult size dummy as well as the infant. We also use this opportunity to go through scenarios of what to do if you are alone vs. people around and other fun things I throw their way.
You could also do some other really fun things with this:
- Have them record a short video explaining all the steps of CPR
- Have students work in groups and help each other with depth of compressions, steps of CPR, etc
- Act out a scenario where CPR would have to be used.
After we do this in class I have them take their post test at home and independently. The website allows me to see each students score in each class. Once they pass I give them a CPR mask that they can keep on their backpack or keys. (https://amzn.to/3RezvI3) They love having these!
The next class we do my absolute favorite thing…First Aid Stations. The videos above very very briefly touch on this so I created a station activity that was more interactive and allowed for more first aid knowledge that high school aged students may encounter.
This station activity has stations for: ICE, concussions, PPE, burns, cuts/scrapes, severe bleeding, stroke, nosebleeds, scavenger hunt for things like fire extinguishers-AED- etc, and a make your own first aid kit station. You do need a little equipment for this station activity: gloves and jelly or ketchup to practice PPE at the PPE station, a tourniquet at the severe bleeding station (we borrow the training one from our nurse) and if you choose to do the build a first aid kit I give you suggestions on what to use but you can omit this or have your students build them with what you’d like! I think they get more out of this activity since some are hands on and interactive, but they also have questions they have to answer. I do this in a 90 min class, if your classes are shorter you may need to split it up over 2 days or have bigger groups working together.
Many people want to know how I gathered all the supplies for the first aid kits. I teach around 150 students in total per year and every single one of them gets to take home a kit! I did a few things to gather these supplies: parent donations (our school requires parents to volunteer so many hours and they can purchase items instead of volunteer), made an amazon wish list that friends and family donated items, grants like Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is amazing! Go to the one in your area and ask for the manager and usually they will make something happen for you! You could have small first aid kits, they do not have to contain as much as mine did, but I was lucky to get a ton of donations!
My state requires high schoolers “to be introduced to CPR before graduation” but it’s not specifically in the PE/Health Standards. My school doesn’t have a health specific class, so we do this in general 9th grade PE. They all end up loving this mini unit and it’s something they will use for a lifetime!
Elliott's Active Academy 