From classroom to community: Stewart School students share safety tips with Perth
Students at The Stewart School in Perth are helping spread the message of water, fire, and personal safety across their community through a series of self-produced educational videos,now available to the public via QR-coded postcards.
The campaign is the result of a Real-World Learning project that began last fall in Cara Dean’s Grade 1/2 class, after the teacher read a local news article about the importance of working smoke alarms in homes.
“This powerful article got my attention,” said Dean. “In the article, Perth Fire Chief Trevor Choffe shared that 31 per cent of households didn’t have working smoke alarms, and that historically, educating people is a better method than fines for enforcing the law.”
Inspired by the story, Dean’s students began journaling about fire safety. From there, the class expanded their focus to include water and personal safety, learning from guest speakers along the way.
As the project grew, so did the collaboration. Students from the school’s media team—made up of Grade 5 and 6 students—joined the younger learners to assist with writing scripts, sourcing props, filming, and editing video segments. The final videos feature younger students delivering safety messages on camera, often using a green screen to place them in different virtual settings.
“We got to talk in front of a big green screen, and it looked like we were standing in a big hill of grass,” said student Nathaniel Noble-Kay.
“I like being backstage and getting to watch the whole thing live,” added Wallond Jamieson. “I liked doing the fire safety ones because it had a lot more cool props like fire hoses and a fire extinguisher.”
“It’s been one of the things I’ve liked most about the year because we got to do different things,” said media team member Maxwell Ferris. “We got to learn how to use different equipment and figure out how to set it up. It’s been really fun.”
To help share their work with the community, the students designed postcards featuring QR codes that link to the videos. Images Inter Alia, a local print company, provided a 50 per cent discount to help bring the postcards to life. They’ve since been distributed to the Perth Library, restaurants, and cafes around town.
“It was fantastic to see them so engaged and wanting to share their messages with our community,” said Dean. “And I love how this project involved multiple classes. It evolved to include the development of many skills like reading, writing, media, technology, social skills and more. It has turned out to be a great cross-curricular project!”
Visitors to Perth this summer are encouraged to look for the postcards and scan the QR codes to watch the student-led videos. Feedback can be shared by dropping a note in the front door mailbox of The Stewart School at 7 Sunset Boulevard.