Education about Dengue in schools can help control the epidemic

health

Brazil records more than 650 thousand cases of the disease in the first two months of the year

According to the Ministry of Health, the current dengue epidemic will be the worst in recent years. Data from the Ministry’s Arbovirus Panel records 653,000 probable cases of contagion in the population in the first two months of the year and the numbers are expected to increase.

Still at the beginning of February, the Ministry estimated that probable and actual cases of dengue could reach 4.2 million in December, the highest in history. This represents slightly less than triple the total cases of last year, which reached 1.6 million.

The health emergency also raises awareness regarding children, who are among the groups most sensitive to contagion and returning to classes. “Given the seriousness of the issue, it is important for schools to adopt precautionary measures and approach the topic in classes in a creative way, with videos and practical activities”, says Vitor Azambuja, co-founder of the educational methodology De Criança Para Criança (DCPC).

In the classrooms

“It is important to know whether children are following the subject and understanding the need for health care. Dengue is back and children can talk about it to other children using their own expressiveness. What one child says, the other understands”, highlights Vitor.

From theoretical to practical teaching, it is possible to work on the topic of dengue in different ways in the classroom, adds DCPC professor and pedagogical consultant José Francisco Aparecido, known as Chiquinho. If the teacher has already provided information about what mosquitoes are like, where they live and when they are active, students can do some research at school.

“Since the dengue mosquito is active during the day and acts mainly during class periods, you can take children to school areas to see if there are vases with pooled water and everything that allows the mosquito to reproduce. The child has to be aware, but it is important that they visualize it. That way, when she returns home, she will do the same”, details Chiquinho.

Using other pedagogical tools also helps to consolidate concepts, continues the teacher. As suggestions, podcasts or specific work with health experts can be carried out, as well as lectures for children through puppets, games and creative activities. Among them is the DCPC methodology, of transforming stories into cartoons.

Creativity at school

Using the DCPC methodology, elementary school students from partner schools choose a topic mediated by the teacher and create a story with a script, drawings and narration. The files are digitized and sent to the DCPC platform to be transformed into animation.

One of the examples is the video “Let’s fight dengue”, animated by DCPC based on a story made by students in the 3rd year of elementary school at Anglo Vinhedo school. The story is about how the children of a man bitten by the dengue mosquito strive to take care of him and make people aware of the precautions needed to prevent the spread of mosquitoes.

*With information from the Advisory

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