Kids have special classes on organ transplants

Ten-year-old Julia Fischer has a personal interest in her classes on human organ transplants. Last December, her great-aunt died while waiting for a liver transplant.

Julia is a 5th grader. She's in a gifted program at the Creative Learning Center in the Rockwood School District. One of her classes involves study of organ transplants.

Naturally, Julia decided to focus on a study of the liver. The liver is one of six human organs that can be transplanted successfully to provide life-saving benefits.

Julia said, "My great-aunt was on the donor list. She was called in for a transplant but then that liver also went bad." Her great-aunt died in December. Julia's special class on organ donation class started in January.

Debbie Albert teaches 10 of those fifth-grade classes which she calls, "People Who Need People." The kids get a look at human anatomy,. They also study diseases that can cause organs to fail.

Kids from all over the Rockwood School District come to the Creative Learning Center for advanced classes. Julia is from Uthoff Valley Elementary.

Kids in the class also study ways to protect their bodies to minimize the need of an organ transplant.

At the end of the class this spring, kids will have created a book on the organ they picked for study. Besides the liver, other transplantable organs are the kidney, heart, lung, small intestine and pacreas.

At the end of the year, parents of the kids in Ms. Albert's classes will be invited to a Fifth Grade Project Night. At that May 20 event, all kids display their organ books.

Several kids in the class know other kids who have had organ problems.

Eleven-year-old Rachel Croon said, "I know there's a boy at our church who needs a heart transplant." Rachel is from the Kehrs Mill Elementary School.

Eleven-year-old Andrew Beisel said, "There's a kid in our school who had to have one of his kidneys taken out." So far, his remaining kidney is functioning well and he hasn't had to have a transplant, Andrew said.

All of the kids in Ms. Albert's classes have had a chance to meet with an adult organ transplant recipient. Ken Nottestad is a St. Louisan who is living with two transplanted lungs. He needed the transplant because pulmonary fibrosis damaged both of his own lungs.

Ms. Albert said, "He's come to talk with all 10 of my classes."

Students come to her anatomy class once-a-week. They study about organ transplantation for a whole morning. They take two shorter classes on different subjects in the afternoons.

Eleven-year-old Sarah Wieder said she remembered that Nottestad received his lungs from a 15-year-old boy who had died. "He's had his new lungs for two years," she said.

Sarah is a student at Kehrs Mill Elementary. She said the most interesting this she's learned in her class is that there were 80,000 Americans on waiting lists for organ transplants.

She said, "Only two percent of deaths involve people who are brain-dead first." She said she learned, "if the death is caused by heart stoppage or other things, organs can't be used for transplants."

Rachel Croon said, "If you die due to brain death, your organs can save more than one person." The Kehrs Mill Elementary student said, "When I get older, I'm going to consider donating my organs."

Eleven-year-old Rob Ksiazek said the most interesting fact he's learned is that there are six transplantable organs. He said, before the class, "I thought there were only two-the heart and lungs."

Concerning the most valuable lesson he's learned, Rob said it was about how to prepare to donate organs. He said, "You have to tell your family you want to donate your organs."

In addition to the six life-saving transplantable organs, the human body has 50 different tissues that can be used to help others. Included in those would be cornea transplants to help people's vision.

Ms. Albert said, "The tissue transplants improve life and are important." But, she said the kids spend most of their time considering organ transplants.