Saturday afternoon, the bottom floor of Carrington Hall was quiet — eerily quiet for a place accommodating nearly 200 children from second through eighth grade.
“I know it looks like there’s nobody here, but just you wait,” said Megan Williams, faculty advisor to the UNC Association of Nursing Students.
Just like that, the arrival of pizza and lemonade cued a mass migration of Girl Scouts — and one Boy Scout — from all over the UNC School of Nursing.
The day’s program, TarHeal Explorations, is an effort by the UNC Association of Nursing Students to reach out to the next generation of potential health care providers and teach them how to maintain healthy lifestyles.
UNC Association of Nursing Students Vice President Claire Clement said the service-based club has been planning the event since May. They got sponsorships and food donations from organizations including the National Student Nurses' Association, Domino’s and Jason’s Deli, she said.
Nearly 200 Scouts from 26 troops across the state participated in the event, which was divided into an introduction, six learning stations, lunch and a closing ceremony, Williams said.
The stations covered topics including nutrition, healthy habits, infection control, first aid, anatomy and a “STAN” patient simulator.
“We call it our STAN station,” Clement said. “He’s like this super awesome robot mannequin. They can hear breath sounds and heart sounds and feel pulses … to see what giving an examination is like.”
Mackenzie Hudson, a 12-year-old Girl Scout from Wake Forest, said her favorite part was learning about first aid and all the different nurses in the program.