For the past couple weeks I've seen nearly everyone of my Facebook friends pour water on their heads and I've laughed watching "Ice Bucket Challenge Gone Wrong" videos on YouTube. I've watched Tim McGraw, the Wahlberg family and other a-listers dump ice water all over themselves for a good cause. I mostly figured it was "the cool thing to do" right now, so I started to get a little annoyed by it; however, if something as simple as dumping freezing cold water can raise awareness and millions of dollars, keep it up!
This week, a few of my students nominated me and I did a little digging of my own. Before you watch my video I want you (especially my students) to learn something.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.
As motor neurons degenerate, they can no longer send impulses to the muscle fibers that normally result in muscle movement. Early symptoms of ALS often include increasing muscle weakness, especially involving the arms and legs, speech, swallowing or breathing. When muscles no longer receive the messages from the motor neurons that they require to function, the muscles begin to atrophy (become smaller). Limbs begin to look "thinner" as muscle tissue atrophies.
Info via ALS Association. Please read more about ALS at the ALS Association.
Please read more about the symptoms and stages of ALS at Muscle Disease Association.
Recently, I've seen a lot of criticism towards the Ice Bucket Challenge and I was pretty bummed to see that people have to criticize something that is raising awareness and collecting over 94 MILLION dollars to further research. What's so bad about that? Although I'm a little late, I'm proud to say I joined the trend!
The best part of this entire thing happened before I participated in the challenge. On our way out of the schoo-- ice bags, cups, and pitcher in hands-- I heard my 11 & 12 year-old students informing their peers about the significance of the challenge. I'm thinking my students need to have a chat with the people bashing anyone's efforts in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. There's not really anything cooler than young people passionate and informed about something important.
P.S. In case you are wondering-- that was cold. Cold as in can't-catch-my-breath-because-my-lungs-stopped-working cold.
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