Nathan Smith loves to play fantasy video games and chase his chickens, but he wants to be a microbiologist, like his mom.
Aiming high, Nathan, who just finished fifth-grade at Ward-Stewart Elementary, even forayed into the national spotlight this year winning a contest, for a poster he drew with markers and pencils. It”s not the first time he”s won something — he”s won awards at science fairs — but it is the first time the media is paying any attention to him, and he thinks that”s pretty cool.
”Fight the Bite”
The subject of the contest was a familiar one — mosquitos.
Nathan has very sensitive skin, so he knows bugs can be a problem. And since Mississippi is “a mushy state,” according to Nathan — muddy and wet, especially at his Boy Scout camp, Camp Seminole — lots of insects live here. Which means people need to be careful.
“I think some people should take a step to know more about this, actually,” he said at camp on Friday afternoon. “Because some people don”t pay any attention at all to some things that are going on out here with bugs.”
A few months ago, Nathan”s mother, Renotta, was on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site, looking up something for work — she”s a biological technician with the United States Department of Agriculture — and she noticed an ad for a poster contest called “Fight the Bite.” It was intended to promote prevention of mosquito bites, which can transmit some serious diseases, like West Nile virus, and it was for fifth- and sixth-graders only. “I said (to Nathan), ”You ought to try this and enter it,”” she recalled.
“OK,” he said. He set himself up at the living room coffee table and went to work. He drew himself and his father camping, and some mosquitos, but it was missing something. “It needed something unique,” Nathan said. “And then I figured, Something with dinosaurs!” He loves dinosaurs. He drew a dinosaur and wrote about its thick skin compared to the stuff humans have. “Because we don”t have thick skin, we need to use DEET,” he wrote. “Yuck,” the mosquitos said, and flew away.
He knows how important it is to use bug spray. But the truth is, he said, “sometimes I just don”t put on bug spray.” He puts it on “when bugs are really liking me,” especially ticks and mosquitos, he said.
The CDC awarded a $50 U.S. savings bond to a fifth-grader and a sixth-grader from each state. Nathan was Mississippi”s fifth-grade winner.
Just before the school year ended, his mom received an e-mail from the CDC announcing he”d won. He”s thrilled about receiving the savings bond, she said — for an 11-year-old, it”s a lot of money.
Reaching others
And in a way, Nathan is not the only one who will receive a payoff.
The CDC”s decision to encourage children to create the posters is a great idea, because by nature their efforts cause other people to think about the subject matter at hand, said Irene Pintado, an assistant professor of health and kinesiology at Mississippi University for Women in Columbus.
“When they”re involved in something, their parents are involved,” she said on Friday. “Their families are involved, you can get the school involved, and the community”s involved. … It reaches everyone.”
And, she added, “When a child does it, you maybe take a second look and say, ”What is that about?””
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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