Happy smiling boy in glasses with thumb up is going to school for the first time. Child with school bag and book. Kid indoors of the class room with blackboard on a background. Back to school. S

Like many schools, Angie Grant Elementary in Benton, Arkansas struggles to get its young students to wash their hands. Hoping to rectify this issue, one of the school’s nurses implemented a fun hand washing exercise, reports THV 11.

Ronda Wagner and second grade teacher Anna Lawrence gathered Lawrence’s class  together for a project focused on how germs are transferred. The method was simple: put a special powder on a football and then have the kids throw the ball around. The students then went inside and turned off the lights so that all they could see was the powder. To the surprise of the kids (and hopefully few in the cleaning industry) the powder was on their faces, hands, and arms.

Now the kids have visual evidence of just how gross their hands can make everything.

Sick of seeing high absenteeism, plenty of educators across the globe are thinking up was to etch the importance of proper handwashing into their students’ brains. Last fall, a primary school in India installed a hand-shaped robot named Pepe in the area where the kids are supposed to wash their hands. Since the installment of Pepe, student handwashing rates have improved by 40 percent.

Just a few weeks back, researchers worked with young Canadian students to come up with a song that they could sing to while washing their hands.