PBS TeacherSource

Interactive Teacher
Guide
Carpool to Nirvana

Viewing Guide • Careers and Vocational Education Activities • Health Activities
• Mathematics Activities • Resource Links • Classroom Resources


HEALTH Met Life

Duplicate or distribute these activities. Students may work independently or cooperatively.

Health Considerations
The ideal workplace protects the worker’s health. Can it also contribute to the health of others in his or her family?

• List the attributes of an ideal workplace.

• Discuss what effect each attribute would have on the health of family members, if any.

• Create a cause-effect chart to summarize your conclusions. (One item has been entered as an example.)

Attribute of Ideal Workplace

Effect on Health of Family Members

flexible work schedule

positive–allows parent to stay home with a sick child, and to take the child to the doctor if necessary

 

 

 

 

 

 

You might extend this activity by interviewing a representative of a local company to find out which of the ideal workplace attributes that company has implemented and which it has not, and the reasons behind those decisions. You can expand your chart as indicated to include this information.

Attribute of Ideal Workplace

Effect on Health of Family Members

Implemented at

[Name of Company]?

Reason for Implementing/ Not Implementing

flexible work schedule

positive–allow parents to stay home with a sick child, and to take the child to the doctor if necessary.)

no

Can’t find substitutes on short notice. If employees don’t show up for work, customers are badly inconvenienced.

 

 

 

     

 

 

You might want to check out Livelyhood's list of Web sites to learn more about Workplace Benefits and Protection

Steps to Health
Tiffany Simonsen learned the hard way that her workplace was hazardous to her health (segment 6 of "Carpool to Nirvana"). She informed her employer that there were problems, and her employer responded with an ergonomic analysis and redesign of workstations. (If you want, you can read more about Tiffany's story and the resources she turned to in Livelyhood's My New Desk feature on the "Carpool to Nirvana" Web site.) Consider with your classmates how workers and employers can work together to eliminate workplace hazards of various kinds. You might want to break into small groups so that each group can look at a different type of workplace, like manufacturing, healthcare, and/or officework.

• List your ideas for identifying hazards and for getting these corrected. Refine this into a sequence of steps for identifying and correcting workplace hazards. What can an employer--and employees--do?

• Design a chart that presents your steps for identifying and correcting workplace hazards.

(Livelyhood offers a list of Web sites dealing with Workplace Health and Safety, and a list of Web sites dealing with Workplace Benefits and Protection)

You can offer your completed chart to a local company to post in a work area. Or you might offer it to an organization concerned with workplace safety–maybe they’ll post it on their Web site!