Farm kids learn by doing — and that’s how farm safety is taught at Safety City.
“Every program starts with a lesson in the classroom,” said executive director Judy Douglas, who manages the non-profit organization in Red Deer.
“And in every program they move on to do some activity. They always practise what they learned.”
A Red Deer fixture — in no small part due to the miniature cityscape and barn that can be seen from a major city thoroughfare — Safety City was formed in 2001 with the goal of preventing injuries in children through lessons in fire, bike, pedestrian, and farm safety.
Since then, the program has expanded to reach between 2,500 and 3,000 children every year, who come for school programs, summer camps, and birthday parties.
And roughly half those kids are from rural centres across central Alberta.
“Most of the kids who come through the program are not necessarily farm kids, but they visit the farm sometimes,” said Douglas, adding hazards on the farm are different from ones in town.
In Safety City’s barn, the children are guided through 12 interactive stations where they can practise lessons in farm safety, including safety around livestock, chemicals, farm equipment, dugouts, and construction zones.
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There, they learn to “aim for safety,” said Douglas.
“Each letter — A, I, M — stands for something,” she said.
A — stands for assessing the situation; I — is for identifying the hazards; and M — stands for managing behaviour.
In one corner of the barn, the kids are given a hands-on lesson in dugout safety. Against the wall stands a white plastic ramp that’s “the same angle that the sides of a dugout would be,” said Douglas. After kicking off their shoes, the kids try — and fail — to scramble up the ramp.
“They just think they could climb back out,” said Douglas. “If they go and take a run at it, they can climb up, but you can’t do that if you fall in a dugout.
“That makes it real to them.”
Each lesson reinforces that many farm accidents are preventable, she said.
“Everybody who’s on the farm or on the acreage has to be aware of the dangers and know how to manage their behaviour,” said Douglas.
“Kids are quite capable of learning those things. They just need to be exposed to it and taught it, and then it needs to be reinforced.”
