04 June 2003 00:00 Special message for local schools

Over 1,800 teachers in the region today received a personal message from East Midlands Electricity (EME) - good safety education saves lives.

Most electrical accidents happen when children are at home during the holidays, so EME has today sent a special information pack urging local schools to use its free educational website - www.powerdiscoveryzone.com - to help teach youngsters important safety messages before the end of term.

The special pack contains a poster, activity sheet and letter which gives teachers ideas on how they can best use the interactive Power Discovery Zone website. The youngsters can learn about all aspects of electricity - including power generation, distribution and circuit theory - and, even more importantly, how to keep themselves safe when near electricity.

Jerry Carnell, EME's safety adviser, said: "Across the UK, over 350 people, many of them children, are hurt in electrical accidents in and around the home every year.

"We believe it's essential to get important safety messages across to children at the right age. One of the best ways to achieve this is to involve schools and to provide resources that assist teachers, while also supporting the national curriculum."

In addition to the school pack, EME has also revamped www.powerdiscoveryzone.com to include a teacher zone, which guides the teacher around the site, showing the sections of the national curriculum that are supported by the activities.

The new website zones feature ideas for hands-on classroom experiments, safety spotter activities, bright spark factfiles and creative work projects, a jargon buster, useful weblinks, an interactive question and answer section, games, jokes and regular competitions.

"With school holidays being a time when accidents can happen, we hope that the teacher pack, combined with the new look website, will help cut electricity-related injuries across the region this summer," said Jerry Carnell.

The www.powerdiscoveryzone.com website is part of EME's ongoing safety campaign and is run in conjunction with the Power Discovery Bus - a mobile exhibition centre provided as a free educational resource to schools.