Through creative interactive presentations, rural children, adolescents, and farm families identify and investigate agricultural accidents, their causes and their effects on the health and wellness of the people, and they share their prevention strategies with each other. The Farm Safety Display consists of a 6ft x 6ft low table containing a small-scale 'barn' and a 'silo' model. Tractors and other miniature farm implements are placed around the barn, and set up as an unsafe farm with toy people strategically placed in unsafe positions, showing that they have been or are about to be injured. The display is easily transported to schools and other locations as needed. The Agricultural Hazard and Injury slide presentation uses a classroom format with slides, lecture, and interactive dialog.
Slides come from pictures taken at actual farm accidents.
Brief descriptions of the accident lend well to interactive participation by the groups in determining causes and prevention strategies. Formal evaluations of these programs include asking the younger children 6-weeks after seeing the Farm Safety Display to remember one of the hazards described and to draw a picture of it. Older students who attend the slide presentation are given a questionnaire to fill out 2-4 months after the slide presentation. The Farm Safety Program is funded by the Northeast Center for Agricultural and Occupational Health.