Environmental and Occupational Health Risks: Educating Undergraduate (ADN-BSN) Nursing Students for Safer Practice

Background: Globally, adverse health effects, including deaths and disabilities, occur from living or working in unhealthy domains where exposure to environmental and occupational hazards exists. A multitude of these hazards are present in clinical settings in the healthcare environment where nurses care for patients and risk ongoing exposures to toxic substances. Problem: Environmental and occupational health education is rarely included in the standard undergraduate nursing curriculum, contributing to a deficit among nurses in environmental health awareness and knowledge. Methods: The study design was a pre/post evaluation of a single cohort (n=32) of undergraduate nursing students to assess environmental and occupational health awareness and knowledge after participating in an educational intervention. Knowledge acquisition was the outcome measure used to indicate the effectiveness of the intervention. Data analysis was performed in Qualtrics. Intervention: The intervention was a self-paced, interactive online educational module on environmental and occupational health risks, with a virtual reality of a simulated patient’s room, supplemented with content and resources for extended learning. The virtual reality activity took students into a simulated hospital patient room in two separate visits, where they encountered exposures to occupational hazards. Results: Correct answers to the nine content questions increased by 156% (mean) and 52% (median) from pre- to post-evaluation. The range of increase in correct answers for seven questions ranged from 32% to 1100%. Correct answers to two questions decreased by 6% and 14%. Qualitative results indicated greater engagement and satisfaction when participants compared their experiences with conventional classroom and textbook learning. Keywords: ADN-BSN, education, environmental, hazard, nurse, occupationa

Serious gaming approach framework for construction hazards identification

Construction-related workers are always exposed to occupational hazards ona construction site. Hence, safety training is inevitable to reduce the alarming rate ofaccidents on sites. However, due to the nature of construction environment which ishazardous and harmful current safety training is still lacks hands-on approaches.Training assisted by affordable technology such as serious game would be aneffective tool to improve learning and has become a new approach to trainingdelivery. It offers safer, interactive and entertaining learning environment for theconstruction-related workers. Therefore, the aim of this study is to develop a seriousgame framework for hazard identification training module. To develop thisframework, the Garris‘s Input-Process-Outcome game model is adopted as thefoundation and five objectives are laid out. The first objective is to determine themost suitable instructional design method and the second objective is to determineserious game attributes to support the effective learning. Through content analysismethods, the findings show that there are 12 attributes of the serious game andGagne‘s Nine Events Instructional Methods Design is able to support an effectivelearning. The third objective is to understand user characteristics. Data wascollected from 319 construction-related workers using questionnaires and analysedusing mean comparison and ANOVA. Findings confirmed that they belong toindependent learners‘ category and inclined to ‗vigilant‘ and ‗brooding‘ types ofdecision-making style. These objectives become the basis for Input phases of theframework. The Gagne‘s instructional method also laid out the learning expectationfor Outcome phase i.e. skills, cognitive and affective learning. The fourth objectiveis to design the process of hazard identification. Through content analysis,Recognition-Primed Decision making model (RPD) is chosen and merged withhazard identification process and hierarchy of control to establish the Process phaseof the framework. All the findings are incorporated to achieve the fifth objectivewhich is to develop the serious game framework. The framework is validated bythree experts specialised in education, construction safety, and informationtechnology. They agreed that this framework would be able to enhance learning interm of skills, cognitive and affective learning. Finally, this serious game frameworkwill provide a safer, more affordable and interactive as well as entertaining forhazard identification training delivery in the construction industry

New Solut

This article presents an analysis of the essential elements of effective occupational safety and health education and training programs targeting underserved communities. While not an exhaustive review of the literature on occupational safety and health training, the paper provides a guide for practitioners and researchers to the key factors they should consider in the design and implementation of training programs for underserved communities. It also addresses issues of evaluation of such programs, with specific emphasis on considerations for programs involving low-literacy and limited-English-speaking workers.CC999999/Intramural CDC HHS/United States2015-08-18T00:00:00Z25053607PMC454032

CSI4FS - A Markerless Augmented Reality Application for Forensic Science Crime Scene Investigation Training

A capstone submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in the College of Education at Morehead State University by Ian Levstein on April 9, 2018

Development of an online food safety training and pilot study for employees of university farms and school gardens

Two one-hour on farm food safety online module were developed to inform k-12 students and university farm workers on food safety hazards associated with production and harvesting of fresh produce. Module content was developed through a review of the current Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) Program, current research available, and updated regulations in produce food safety. Quizzes for students and a user manual were created for facilitators and instructors to support the online modules. After developing the course materials, a pilot study was conducted at two k-12 school districts in Iowa, two land grant universities, with a six member expert steering committee panel to test the knowledge gained through the two developed curriculum. The six member expert steering committee along with three other facilitators completed an online survey consisting of open-ended questions to determine the effectiveness of the online module and the supporting materials available on the inclusive webpage. The hypothesis of this research is that the online curriculum and supportive material will be beneficial to both demographics, and increase in knowledge will be observed after viewing developed material. Students and university survey results indicate that the online module will significantly increase the knowledge of students and university workers related to hazards associated with produce food safety (P\u3c0.05). The topics, graphics, design, length, and webpage were appropriate for the age group. Additionally, the resource guide and quizzes were perceived as helpful and will be useful to increase the knowledge and confidence of the training facilitators (P\u3c0.05). The group indicated that specific graphic and content material changes should be made within the module. This online module is a first step toward educating youth about food safety in the garden. Knowledge on hazard prevention can reduce the risk of produce contamination and decrease produce outbreaks from occurring in school gardens

Supporting community engagement through teaching, student projects and research

The Education Acts statutory obligations for ITPs are not supported by the Crown funding model. Part of the statutory role of an ITP is “... promotes community learning and by research, particularly applied and technological research ...” [The education act 1989]. In relation to this a 2017 TEC report highlighted impaired business models and an excessive administrative burden as restrictive and impeding success. Further restrictions are seen when considering ITPs attract < 3 % of the available TEC funding for research, and ~ 20 % available TEC funding for teaching, despite having overall student efts of ~ 26 % nationally. An attempt to improve performance and engage through collaboration (community, industry, tertiary) at our institution is proving successful. The cross-disciplinary approach provides students high level experience and the technical stretch needed to be successful engineers, technologists and technicians. This study presents one of the methods we use to collaborate externally through teaching, student projects and research

Methods for Teaching Environmental Law: Some Thoughts on Providing Access to the Environmental Law System

This article surveys methods that could improve the effectiveness of environmental legal education. I propose that approaches to teaching environmental law be viewed in two ways; first, as a substantive course in which students gain access to a complex system of law, and second, as a substantive base for teaching students skills of legal process. Within both possibilities, I focus on the value of teaching students to understand the environmental law system. Instructors can introduce students to the environmental law system by looking at a few of the major environmental statutes in relative depth, or as they apply to specific factual environmental problems. This environmental law system is preferential to focusing, as many environmental courses do, on many of the major federal environmental statutes at a superficial level. By studying the environmental law system vertically, students will acquire skills that are transferable within environmental law to any environmental law statute, or to any other area of law

Methods for Teaching Environmental Law: Some Thoughts on Providing Access to the Environmental Law System

This article surveys methods that could improve the effectiveness of environmental legal education. I propose that approaches to teaching environmental law be viewed in two ways; first, as a substantive course in which students gain access to a complex system of law, and second, as a substantive base for teaching students skills of legal process. Within both possibilities, I focus on the value of teaching students to understand the environmental law system. Instructors can introduce students to the environmental law system by looking at a few of the major environmental statutes in relative depth, or as they apply to specific factual environmental problems. This environmental law system is preferential to focusing, as many environmental courses do, on many of the major federal environmental statutes at a superficial level. By studying the environmental law system vertically, students will acquire skills that are transferable within environmental law to any environmental law statute, or to any other area of law