Hygiena 2020, 65(2):40-47 | DOI: 10.21101/hygiena.a1749

Dangerous plants in gardens of nursery schools

Kateřina Pilařová

Krajská hygienická stanice Středočeského kraje se sídlem v Praze, územní pracoviště Rakovník, Česká republika

Aim: The main target of this investigation was focused on the searching for poisonous plants in gardens of nursery schools, and to assess the level of danger to children and awareness of teachers who ensure the safety of children during their stay in the nursery schools.

Methods: The research was carried out in a total of 40 kindergarten gardens in the Rakovník district. Field research consisted in performing photo documentation, description and identification of plants present in the gardens of kindergartens, or in a brief description of the location of poisonous plants in relation to play elements or edible plants. A questionnaire survey was also included in order to verify the awareness of teachers and the prevalent in the kindergarten when staying outside.

Results: There are often a large number of various dangerous plants containing toxic substances on the grounds of kindergartens and children use for their games some parts of such plants. As it turned out from the questionnaire survey, most of the addressed teachers are not aware of the presence of poisonous plants in the kindergarten grounds. According to the questionnaire survey, educators' awareness of plant hazards is very low.

Conclusions: Although the evaluation of the actual toxicity of the plants is very difficult, there's no space for underestimating this danger. Some of the toxic plant substances have high biological activity in low doses. Teachers' awareness of plant hazards should be generally increased, especially in view of the need of control of the children's outdoor games without using dangerous plant species and thus actively participated in the prevention of possible poisoning. This work serves as a basis for creating material for purposes of public health surveillance in schools and school facilities and manuals directly for the needs of schools, because gardens of nursery schools are, due to the young age, intellectual capacity and great number of children, the riskiest place for the possibility of poisoning.

Keywords: children, intoxication, nursery school, poisonous plants

Received: February 2020; Accepted: May 21, 2020; Published: May 31, 2020  Show citation