Environment

The contributions from Slovenia:
A SCHOOL BAG

At PS Trnovo in the 5.c class in the first months of class we made an research about how heavy our school bags are. The weight of school accessories is very high. Every pupil dayly weihgted how heavy the school bag was. We also researced the injuries of the spine, which are caused by the huge weight.

The spine (backbone)

The spine supports and carries the body. It also protects the bone narrow, that stretches through all the body through the spine channel. Human has from 32 to 33 vertebraes.

Spine diseases

If a spinal cord located in spine is damaged a person becomes an invalid. The damage can be caused by different reasons: injuries, traffic accidents, aging.

The percentage of people with spine difficulties depends of the age. An older person usually has more problems then younger one. The graph presents the percentage of spine difficulties in dependence of the age. If the spinal cord is damaged in the neck area a person cannot use hands and legs and any part of the body under the place of the injury. He/she is a tetraplegic. If the spinal cord is damaged in the lower area, a person cannot use the legs. He/she is a paraplegic.

Good school bags

New school bags who we are dragging behind us like suitcase are very appreciate for student of all ages. With them there are no injuries and you aren't tired.

Bad school bags

Bad school bags damages shoulders and even if we have adequate bag it could damages a body because of the incorrect caring. The weight of the bag is also very important for the health of our spine.

Carrying the bag

It's very important to carry a bag on booth shoulders so the load is equal on the both shoulders. In our age we are still growing and it is dangerous for our spine if we don't carry our bags properly or they are too heavy. The spine can be deformed. It's weary dangerous to carry the bag on one shoulder or in hands because the weight is only on one side and there is a possibility for damages and deformations of the spine as scoliosis and backaches.

The results of measurements

We measured the weight of our school bags every day within one week. The average weight in kg for every day is shown on the graph. It was interesting that the weight of some bags differed for one to two kilograms from the average.

What to do?

It's not easy to carry such a heavy bag to the school and from the school every day. The bags are heavy because of many books, handbooks, exercise books, sport clothes and other things we need for lessons. We can make an arrangement with our teacher to carry only very necessary books, we can leave some books in the school. We have to be careful what to put in our bags. If happens that a bag is very heavy and we cannot avoid that because of our time table. Then we have to be careful how we carry our bags: on the both shoulders.