March 5, 2020
By: Joseph Miller
On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern.” Coronavirus continues to spread and schools across the world are preparing for the scenario where they experience an outbreak in the local community. In addition, schools are encouraged to focus on preventive measures such as proper handwashing behavior. Research on handwashing behavior among American school children shows that most students do not properly wash their hands (10-50% of students were observed following proper protocol). In this Classroom Innovation Challenge secondary students are encouraged to break in design teams and come up with innovative solutions to increase handwashing hygiene in their school.
The Handwashing Challenge is a multi-day project where students design and test ideas to answer the question, “How might we increase handwashing hygiene in our local school to prevent the spread and reduce the impact of infectious disease such as coronavirus (COVID-19)?” Download the step-by-step playbook for the Innovation Challenge here.
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© 2017 The Global Handwashing Partnership (GHP).