Northshore Fire Department launches interactive educational tool to teach children fire safety and emergency preparedness

From left: Kelly Hill, Fireman’s Fund Insurance; Tom Weathers, Fire Chief;
Carl Lovsted and Dean Young, Lovsted-Worthington Insurance.

The Northshore Fire Department, with the benefit of a $5,524 grant from Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company and Lovsted-Worthington Insurance, purchased an interactive educational game to teach children about fire safety and emergency preparedness. 

At a June 10th media event, Kenmore Elementary 4th graders demonstrated the interactive game using Audience Response Pads, a device that records and tabulates their responses to the questions. Whether a question is answered correctly or incorrectly, the player is shown a summary for the correct answer that reinforces what they learned. When using the Audience Response Pads, the software has the ability to quantify the number of children who participate in the challenges and the percentage of correct answers for each question. This is a valuable evaluation tool that helps the department improve their public fire education programs and messaging to the public.

The software includes four different interactive game formats that allows for the variation of skill and knowledge level for the subject matter being taught. The game’s question and answer format is a great tool for educating adults as well on topics such as residential fire sprinklers, smoke alarms, carbon monoxide poisoning prevention, seasonal safety and much more. Other applications for the software are for in-house and public training programs. 

The interactive program will also be available on the Northshore Fire Department’s website providing the ability to reach a wider audience.