Dialysis Clinic, Inc. - Hydration for Kidney Health
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Hydration for Kidney Health


Description:

Hydration for Kidney Health will be taught and promoted to the sixth grade Student Wellness Council to learn and teach others in the Richardson Elementary School in Tucson, Arizona. The Student Wellness Council will then teach the other 350 school students the need for drinking pure water every day for the rest of their lives. DCI staff, school teachers and Tucson Masonic Lodge #4 members will help administer and supervise this project as volunteers.

Purpose:

The purpose is to provide education and access to hydration for kidney health. Students and teachers will be taught also about human anatomy including human kidneys and how kidney care throughout their lives is important for wellness. Homework and take-home information for families will be sent home during the Richardson Wellness Week. We will install two filtered water bottle filling water fountains; provide water bottles for students, with hydration stations and environmentally friendly hydration for kidney health. Our efforts will help build a knowledge base about kidney health, building lifetime healthy habits.

Conclusion:

In March, April and May of 2019 the Student Hydration and Water Education for Kidney Health at Richardson Elementary School in Tucson provided two new hydration and water bottle filling stations and developed a hydration education curriculum for teachers and students to use for teaching all of the approximately 350 elementary students at Richardson Elementary School. Richardson is a 39-year Pima County Elementary School in Tucson, Arizona. There were fourteen classrooms from kindergarten to sixth grade at the school.

 

Hydration for Kidney Health was taught and promoted to the sixth grade Student Wellness Council to learn and teach others in the Richardson Elementary School in Tucson, Arizona. The Student Wellness Council then taught the rest of the 350 school students about the great need for drinking pure water every day for the rest of their lives. DCI staff and Tucson Masonic Lodge #4 members worked with the Richardson School Principal, Henry Linker, and Richardson school teachers to administer and supervise this project as project volunteers. The purpose of the project was to provide education and access to hydration research and information to educate students about the important need for drinking plenty of water to enhance kidney health. Richardson maintains a focus on health and wellness for its Tucson, Arizona, community. Hydration health education and access to filtered water has become a focal point for achieving health and wellness at Richardson. We educated students and families about the vital role that regular and ample hydration plays in kidney health. Students and teachers were taught about human anatomy including human kidneys and how kidney care throughout their lives continues to be important for wellness and for keeping their bodies’ healthy. The educational component included homework for students and take-home information for families during the Richardson Wellness Week in April 2019. Two bottle filling stations were provided through the DCI Purpose Project and gave access to filtered water in two large, distinct locations on the Richardson campus. The Student Wellness Council members helped to create this DCI Purpose Project concept. Richardson technical staff installed the two filtered-water hydration stations at the school. Each hydration station has water faucets for filling water bottles with a drinking fountain on the station too. After placement of the two water-bottle-filling water fountains on campus, water bottles for all students and an activity night to give the bottles out for use with the hydration stations and information on hydration for kidney health families happened. The Richardson Student Wellness Council with guidance from Principal Henry Linker organized the event. Together, these efforts helped to build a knowledge base about hydration and kidney health, thereby building Richardson students’ healthy habits for a lifetime. Plaques acknowledging the donation of the watering stations by DCI were placed on the hydration stations.

 

The sixth graders in the Student Wellness Council were educated and trained by William Wilkinson, DrPH, RN, CNN, on the curriculum on Hydration for Kidney Health and then the current fifth graders were taught by the Student Wellness Council sixth graders to replicate educating and modeling hydration for health topics and content before the sixth graders graduated from elementary school. This 2019-2020 new school year, the fifth graders have become the sixth grade students this school year and they are carrying on the education as the new Student Wellness Council to educate the rest of the students at Richardson and continue the knowledge necessary to use the hydration stations to be installed in the spring semester of 2019.

Spring 2019

Richardson Elementary School 6901 North Camino de la Tierra Tucson, AZ 85741 US

Contact Person:

William Wilkinson

Email: wwilkinsonaz@gmail.com