Miami Children's Museum -- Last Visit

Today was my last visit to Miami Children 's Museum, completing my community service hours and observation hours at the same time. There were only 2 nursing students there, including myself. "Business" was slow until about noon when 3 different party groups came in to see the gallery. We were kept busy until 4 pm, teaching the kids about anatomy, exercise, and dental care. By 4 pm, I was alone, helping kids earn stickers and smiles for being good "doctors", fixing our doll "Tooter" with his ailments. Some children really enjoyed playing with the crutches -- so much so that one kids suffered a nosebleed from playing too rough with one of the other kiddies. At around 5 pm, I stayed in the Parent/Teacher Resource center and read a few books with kids until my time was over at the museum.

I learned a lot from the museum -- I'm a lot more comfortable around children than I was before doing hours there, and I feel good about teaching kids the importance of maintaining good healthy habits. I would recommend this community service activity to any nursing student who's interested in completing their hours. Maybe, by teaching this kids about the importance of healthy habits now, it can help them become more aware of ways to reduce the risk of receiving chronic illnesses such as diabetes and hypertension. Health promotion and primary prevention are some of the initiatives listed in Healthy People 2010.

Today's vocabulary word: Environment. The environment (pg. 38) is all that is external to the human host; physical, biological, social, cultural, etc. Environment plays a big role in what we learn, how we behave and think, and how healthy we are. The children at the museum, many of them from minority families, may be at risk to diseases such as hypertension. You can see the environmental influences of poor food choices when the kids choose pizza, burgers, and ice cream at the fake "Publix" as their food choices for the day. One child stocked his shopping basket with CHEESE, lots and lots of CHEESE!