Swim-lesson event seeks to teach lifesaving safety lessons to children

Swimmers at Zoombezi Bay — and around the world — will receive a lesson on Thursday that could save their lives.

The World’s Largest Swimming Lesson, a global event hosted by the World Waterpark Association, gives a 30-minute swimming lesson once a year on water skills and safety. Zoombezi Bay is one of the international host sites for the event.

“We want to raise awareness of the importance to learn how to swim; it’s as fundamental as a helmet is to riding a bike or seat belt is to a car,” said Aleatha Ezra, who serves as the event spokeswoman of the World’s Largest Swimming Lesson.

The lesson, taught by certified, local water-safety instructors, separates

children ages 2 to 12 into age groups to teach safe water entry, blowing bubbles, floating and basic water locomotion, among other skills.

Although the lesson can be a big step for participants, it isn’t designed to create competitive swimmers by the end of 30 minutes, Ezra said.

“It gets people excited,” she said, “and hopefully gets them thinking of whether or not they have taken swimming lessons before.”

Worldwide, the event lasts for 24 hours. To that end, organizers also want to break the Guinness world record they currently hold for the number of participants in a simultaneous swimming lesson. The official record was set in 2014, with 36,564 participants in 22 countries.

Seeking to eradicate the number of drownings, the lesson also promotes — more than anything — that water is fun but can be dangerous. Learning to swim, according to the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, can be a way to combat those perils.

Their research shows that the risk of drowning can be reduced by 88 percent if children participate in formal swimming lessons between the ages of 1 and 4.

That is a statistic that event organizers are hoping to change, Ezra said.

“We know how to make a difference in the stats,” she said, “and that is to teach more and more kids how to swim.”

Zoombezi Bay has been a part of such life-saving efforts since 2012. This year, iHeart radio personalities will attend, as well as characters from the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. Tickets can be bought at the gate if they have not been purchased in advance.

The lesson at Zoombezi Bay should be fun and exciting — and important, said Heather Keighley, aquatics manager of the water park.

“Swimming is a tool,” she said,”that they can have in their pockets so that whenever they’re in water, they can know that these swimming lessons can save their life.”