Theme park exhibits, web sites prove safety can be fun

Who says safety isn't fun?  During a recent visit to Walt Disney World in Orlando, I found that learning about safety can be entertaining — or, to use a word that is increasingly popular these days, “edutaining.”

I visited the Liberty Mutual exhibit “Where’s the Fire” at Epcot. The 4,000-square-foot exhibit features an interactive game house where guests are challenged to find and then eliminate home fire hazards. You can compete against other teams as you from run room to room with a flashlight looking for the safety hazards. Shine your flashlight on the hazard to score points. The team with the most points wins.      

By chance, my Disney World visit coincided with an announcement that Underwriters Laboratories has teamed up Disney to develop a youth safety curriculum for schools. “We don’t just want to teach little ditties and clichés but truly impact the safety consciousness of our youth, to empower them to be safety smart,” said Barbara Guthrie, UL’s director of consumer affairs. The first products of this new joint venture will be released next year: two DVDs for kindergarteners to second graders, featuring Timon and Pumbaa from "The Lion King" as “safety ambassadors.” A middle-school program is also planned, teaching safety as part of science lessons. Disney will help promote this "Wild About Safety" program through Radio Disney and features in its resorts and theme parks. 

Like Liberty Mutual, UL also sponsors a pavilion at Epcot. They have interactive displays that show how products are use- and abuse-tested for safety.   

No trip to a theme park in your future? They may not be Webkinz, but these sites have a host of fun, interactive safety-related games:

• BeFireSmart.com, part of Liberty Mutual’s online fire-safety program for parents and kids. Even grown-ups may be stymied by its child-friendly spot-the-fire-hazard test on How Fast Can You Spot Trouble.
• Sparky the Fire Dog and National Fire Protection Association have a slew of bold, fun games. 
• Smokey Kids also has interactive games and fun facts (did you know that one large tree can provide a day’s oxygen for four people?) about the forest and the danger of fires.
• U.S. Fire Administration For Kids Web site is a little more cerebral, with crossword, word search, and matching piece games.

Know of other safety Web sites that deserve our attention? Let us know.

— Don Mays