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Description

Solve the mystery and learn how to protect yourself from the danger of carbon monoxide poisoning by finding clues and interviewing witnesses

Resources

Pens or pencils
Scrap paper
Printed clue cards
Carbon monoxide alarm

Instructions

Before you begin
Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.
Planning this activity
This activity is designed to help young people recognise the signs of carbon monoxide poisoning and how they can keep themselves and their family safe. Make sure you check any gas-based appliances in your meeting place and in your equipment stores before beginning this activity to ensure everyone stays safe.
Write out or print out the clue cards and place them around your meeting place. Some of the clue cards will need to have enough adult volunteers or young leaders to act out the clue. You may want some adult volunteers to be assigned to supervising the game, too.
Time to solve a mystery
Gather everyone together in a circle. Remember not to mention the activity is about carbon monoxide – as that’s the answer to the game.
The person leading the activity should explain that there’s something wrong with their meeting place and they need everyone to become detectives and help to solve the mystery.
Everyone will need to work in their team to discover the clues hidden around the meeting place, as well as interview to some adult volunteers.
Split everyone into small teams and give them pens and paper, so they can keep note of the clues. Hopefully they’ll be able to work out what is wrong.
Witness statements
Give each of these statements to an adult volunteer or young leader. If you don’t have enough adult volunteers, young leaders or parents and carers to play the roles, you can stick these up around your meeting place instead.


Witness clue 1
Witness 1:

It’s so strange. I arrived at our meeting early and it was so cold! Luckily, we’ve a gas fire, so I turned it up to maximum to warm up the place before everyone arrived. I’d brought a snack to have for dinner, but I only ate half of it and felt a bit sick, so I left it. Then I started getting a headache and feeling dizzy. I went outside and started to feel a bit better. Maybe I just wasn’t very hungry.


Witness clue 2
Witness 2:

I was the last to leave the meeting place last week. It all seemed normal, and all the doors and windows were closed. Hearing what Witness 1 said, I remember feeling a similar way as I locked up last week. I felt light-headed and slightly sick, too. I thought I was coming down with the flu or had eaten something that made me feel unwell. I’ve felt fine since then, so I forgot about it. Maybe it isn’t important – I just thought I’d mention it.


Witness clue 3
Witness 3:

Some local developers are renovating older buildings in town. Someone said that they saw them looking at our meeting place about a week ago. They even put a flyer through the letter box.


Witness clue 4
Witness 4:

I helped lock up last week and everything seemed fine. I’ve been trying to keep the cost of our heating bill down, so I turned down the heating. I also checked the batteries in the smoke alarm and carbon monoxide alarm. One needed replacing. I wrote myself a note to buy a new one and put it on our noticeboard.


Physical clues
Place these clues around your meeting place. If you don’t have the items described in the clues, we have included some illustrations in the PDF for you to print off.


Physical clue 1
There’s condensation (drops of water) on the inside of all the windows. All the windows were closed when you arrived to the meeting. There’s no sign of a break in.


Physical clue 2
The flame on the gas hob is yellow rather than the usual blue. It looks droopy and lazy.




Physical clue 3
There are black soot stains on the wall behind the gas fire.



Physical clue 4
The gas boiler needs a service. As you can see from the label, it’s missed its yearly service.

Solving the mystery
Gather everyone back together when they’ve read all the clues.
Ask everyone to write down what they think the source of the problem is and hand it to an adult volunteer. Hopefully everyone worked out that the problem was carbon monoxide.
This is a great opportunity to facilitate a discussion about CO safety. Ask everyone to think about or name the clues that helped to identify CO as the culprit. They are:
the symptoms of CO poisoning experienced by Leader 1 and Leader 2
the batteries in the carbon monoxide alarm
the condensation on the windows
the yellow flames on the gas hob
the soot stains on the wall behind the fire
the gas boiler service being overdue.
Discuss the six main symptoms of CO poisoning: headaches, nausea, dizziness, breathlessness, collapse, and loss of consciousness.
Ask the group to think about potential sources of CO around their homes. Can anyone think of any?
See if anyone knows how we can check for carbon monoxide leaks at home. Do they know when their appliances were last serviced and do they have a working CO alarm?
Have a carbon monoxide alarm ready to show everyone, and demonstrate how to test if it is working properly. Remind everyone that this test should be done weekly.
Reflection
This activity was about being healthy and developing skills, so we can keep ourselves and other people safe. By understanding more about carbon monoxide and how it can be dangerous, what do you think you can do in future to protect yourself from carbon monoxide?

There are plenty of things around us that might seem scary or dangerous, but we just need to be careful with them. It’s just the same as wearing shin pads when we play football or a helmet on our bikes to stay safe.

What other things can we do to help stay safe? It could be sharing what we’ve learnt about carbon monoxide, being ready to spot the symptoms, checking our homes and getting a carbon monoxide monitor, or asking question about other things we want to learn how to use safely.

Safety
All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

You must run your activities in line with the Safeguarding Code of Conduct for Adults (Yellow Card) and report any concerns to the UK HQ Safeguarding Team.

Fires and stoves
Make sure anyone using fires and stoves is doing so safely. Check that the equipment and area are suitable and have plenty of ventilation. Follow the gas safety guidance. Have a safe way to extinguish the fire in an emergency.

Active games
The game area should be free of hazards. Explain the rules of the game clearly and have a clear way to communicate that the game must stop when needed. Take a look at our guidance on running active games safely.

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