A Teacher’s Experiment Shows The Power Of Handwashing And We Can't Stay Unimpressed

Most of the time, an obvious example is very accurate than words. Most especially when it comes to clarifying some basic things to children.

Jaralee Metcalf, a science teacher from Idaho recently did the aforementioned and now it’s really going viral. Showing her pupils the importance of washing their hands properly, the whole world is beginning to follow the prime example.

Bright Humanity was so overwhelmed by how simple and accurate the project was, that we couldn’t hold back but tell you about it all.

More Info: Facebook

When the flu season began during winter, Jaralee Metcalf, a behavioral specialist from Idaho Falls Elementary School revealed she was tired from being sick. With the spread of bacteria in her class being undeniably inevitable, Jaralee decided to show her pupils why they all need to wash their hands.

The Whole Point Of The Experiment

To really explain how the bacteria spread as well as why it’s essential to wash one’s hand very often. She came up with a simple classroom activity with her pupils. She questioned numerous kids with various levels of hand cleanliness to touch five white bread taken from the same loaf at the same time. After this, they were placed in individual plastic bags to see what would happen over the course of one month.

The Steps Taken In The Project

In a Facebook Post, Jaralee said: ‘We took out fresh bread and touched it.’

The first white bread was rubbed on all the laptops found in the classroom. The second one was a control piece, hence it wasn’t touched but placed in the plastic bag and labeled Fresh and Untouched.

The 3^rd piece was touched by the whole class with unwashed hands while the 4^th was touched using washed hands. The 5^th bread witnessed the pupils cleaning their hands with hand sanitizer before touching it.

The Sliced Wiped On Laptops

A month later, the Chrome-book rubbed slice appeared worse than all the other samples. The teacher explained the school does sanitize the laptops but didn’t do that for this project.

The Soap & Warm Water Experiment

The Dirty Hand Slice Of Bread

The Hand Sanitizer Slice Of Bread

Specimen 5 turned out to have a lot of bacteria as well. It’s evident that hand sanitizer can’t replace proper handwashing with soap. Sharing the whole result on Facebook showing parents the importance of washing hands, the project spread to hundreds of other schools as well as families.