Abstract:

Hands hygiene is a key aspect to be healthy, as hands are an excellent vehicle to spread germs (more than 80% of common infections are spread by hands). These germs can get into our organism through mouth or other natural orifices, mucosa or small lesions (sometimes almost imperceptible) in our skin. Hand washing is the most important individual action to avoid spreading infections. From early childhood, children are in contact with their immediate environment. They need to experiment and manipulate to know the world where they live and hence, they are in contact with germs, which can be eventually cause of disease. The soon they acquire proper hygiene habits, the better to keep them healthy. This issue is addressed in the Preschool Spanish curriculum but it is not focused from an experimental point of view. Here, we present a didactical proposal based on inquiry methodology for children from 5 to 7 years old in which they will be introduced in the microorganism world. They would be able to verify that there are little living things that, despite we cannot “see” them with the necked eye, they exist and we can do some activity to “see” them. The main goal of this didactical proposal is that children are aware on the importance of hands hygiene through direct observation of microorganisms that we normally have on our hands, as well as what would happen whit these microorganisms if they wash their hands correctly.

Keywords:

Microorganisms, preschool, health.