Safety Smart® seeks to "edu-tain" kids of all ages

Keeping children safe by empowering them to be Safety Smart!® is the goal of a new initiative by UL with the assistance of various units of The Walt Disney Company.

Safety Smart aims at improving the awareness and understanding of children ages 5 - 14 in safety and in consciously managing themselves and their surroundings to be as safe as possible. Safety Smart cultivates safety science, provides opportunities for children to learn and practice safe behaviors, and helps children make informed safety choices today and in the future.

Throughout 2008, UL and Disney will host more than 250 live, interactive Safety Smart Super Challenge School Assemblies across the country. Also scheduled are hundreds of community safety events, as well as safety messages appearing on Disney.com, UL.com and through local Radio Disney stations' airwaves. And an "Educator's Sweepstakes" program has been established in which 20 educators will be randomly selected in 2008 to attend a UL hosted Safety Summit while enjoying an expense paid vacation to the Walt Disney World® Resort in Florida.

In addition, Disney Educational Productions produced the first two in a series of UL-sponsored DVDs. Each DVD program includes a teacher guide outlining the learning objectives, classroom and take-home activities and exercises and reproducible handouts:

• Wild About Safety: Timon and Pumbaa Safety Smart at Home! -- Students age 5 - 8 join Timon and Pumbaa from Disney's The Lion King as they encounter fun-filled discoveries and imaginary mishaps. Students realize the importance of safety and learn a variety of ways to help themselves and others avoid injuries.
• Safety Smart Science with Bill Nye the Science Guy: Electricity -- Students age 9 - 14 join science icon Bill Nye the Science Guy® as he delves into safety, electricity and the science behind the safety. Students learn to manage their environment and assume responsibility for behaviors that reduce injuries.

Each DVD is available in English, Spanish languages and colosed-captioning. Wild About Safety: Timon and Pumbaa Safety Smart at Home! has been translated into fifteen languages - to make a global impact on our children's safety particularly in nations where there exists a limited understanding and awareness for safety.

Disney's Wild About Safety® started as a Disney Parks and Resorts safety education campaign featuring Timon and Pumbaa's theme park safety tips. UL is a founding participant in this successful initiative, which has reached millions of people since its launch in 2003. For more information, visit www.Disney.com/safety.