Teacher's Gross Bread Trick Will Have You Reaching For The Hand Sanitizer

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Teacher's Gross Bread Trick Will Have You Reaching For The Hand Sanitizer

When you're a kid, you don't care or understand what the big fuss is about germs.

Even as adults, we're constantly reminded to wash your hands, and yes, that can be annoying and sometimes we even question why we need to do it. But one Fayetteville, North Carolina teacher's trick proved that hand washing and sanitizing should be taken very seriously and done more often.

Courtney Lee Simpson has gained online fame after a "bread trick" she used to reiterate the importance of maintaining clean hands, especially as we head into flu season, went viral.

The pre-kindergarten teacher conducted the experiment using bread then shared the final result on Facebook, and it is brilliant.

The results were enough to convince them all to refrain from taking proper hand washing lightly.

While teaching about "germs and how they spread," Lee Simpson brought 3 slices of bread to class. The first slice was placed in a bag using gloves, the second with washed hands, and the third was bagged after it had passed around to every student in the classroom.

A few days later, when the class checked on the bread, they were all surprised at the results.

Courtney Lee Simpson

As expected, the bread that had been touched by dirty hands was spoiled, while the other two slices remained mold and germ-free.

Lee Simpson wrote that the simple visual experiment was "so cool and a great way to teach the importance of hand washing." Instead of just repeating something they hear from all the other adults in their lives, this awesome teacher took a different approach to drive home the point.

To all my teacher friends this is the grossest yet coolest experiment. I did this while teaching about germs and how...

Posted by Courtney Lee Simpson on Sunday, December 7, 2014

Even adults can benefit from the message Lee Simpson was trying to get across to her students. Hand washing is one of the easiest and important ways to prevent contracting and spreading certain diseases.

"The experiment makes a great visual illustration of the utility of soap preventing germ transfer and growth a la 'a picture is worth a thousand words,'" said Birnur K. Aral, PHD., the Director of the Health, Beauty & Environmental Sciences Lab in the Good Housekeeping Institute.

The CDC backed up Dr. Aral's comments reporting that "a million deaths a year could be prevented," if everyone routinely washed their hands.

Although Lee Simpson's post has been going viral recently, it was actually posted on the social platform back in November 2014 and has since garnered over 311,000 shares. The photo

What do you think of this teacher's "bread trick?"

Blair isn't a bestselling author, but she has a knack for beautiful prose. When she isn't writing for Shared, she enjoys listening to podcasts.