The importance of washing our hands

At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, before we went into lockdown, we decided to try to explain to the children how easily germs can spread. Just because you can't see them, doesn't mean they aren't there.
To show the importance of thorough hand washing, we did a little experiment.
Here's what you need:

• bread
• hand sanitiser
• handwashing liquid
• water
• various communal classroom items (e.g. ipad, pencils, etc)
• gloves
• sealing sandwich bags

Here's what we did:

1. Teachers handed the bread with gloves.
2. One student washed their hands well for 20 seconds, following the display posters. They then wiped their hands on a piece of bread and it was placed in a labelled sandwich bag.
3. One student used hand sanitiser and then wiped their hands on a piece of bread.
4. One student did not wash their hands at all and wiped their hands on a piece of bread.
5. Then we wiped a piece of bread on an iPad and whiteboard pens.
6. We left the sandwich bags for two weeks and then looked at the results.

I only got a picture of the pieces of bread that grew nasties but it proved our point and was certainly a conversation starter!

Have you conducted any experiments to show the importance of hand washing?

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