Media Release

Essential Energy is proud to once again present Electricity Safety Week in 2022, helping to teach primary school children how to stay safe around electricity. The program, which this year celebrates 12 years of teaching young NSW people about safety around electricity, is being taught in 98% of schools in the Essential Energy network footprint.

Between 5 and 9 September, 890 regional and rural schools across NSW will roll out Essential Energy’s free educational resources, designed to raise electricity safety awareness, empower students and support STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) education.

Schools access a range of educational resources, including lesson materials, videos, animations, as well as other fun activities and games. With students back in the classroom this year, the program has been designed to be interactive and engaging for all ages.

Essential Energy’s Brendon Neyland, Head of Operations said, “We think it’s important to educate and keep reminding children about the hazards of electricity, as well as ways they can stay safe. Each year we work with the Department of Education to develop a program that meets Science and Technology, as well as PDHPE curriculum requirements for years K-6. As in previous years, our 2022 program is not only educational but will be a lot of fun for primary school students of all ages.”

In addition to the important safety messages around staying safe near powerlines, appliance safety and keeping away from electrical equipment, this year Essential Energy has introduced an additional key safety message, which focuses on the dangers of storms.

“With recent damaging storm activity throughout NSW, we think it’s important for children to understand what to do during and after a storm, to keep themselves and others safe,” Brendon added.

In addition to curriculum-based class work, students can take part in fun activities such as the new activity book, and enter the ‘Be a Safety Star’ student competition to win some cool STEM prizes. The competition is open to all students and includes colouring-in for kindergarten, a poster design for years 1-4 and years 5-6 can enter a superhero comic competition. The lucky winner of the comic competition will see their design in next year’s Electricity Safety Week animation.

Winners and runners up in each category will win individual STEM prizes, as well as $1,000 going to the winners’ school P&C Association. In addition, every school who registers to participate in Electricity Safety Week will automatically go into a draw to win an Alogic 8 Bay USB Desktop Charging Station and 8 cables, valued at $480. Essential Energy’s Electricity Safety Week educational resources, competition details, activities and games can be found at essentialenergy.com.au/esw

“Electricity safety week runs from 5-9 September with all competition entries closing on Friday 16 September. We encourage every NSW school who has registered for the program to get involved and utilise the great resources available to them and their students,” Brendon concluded.