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Students creatively champion clean air at their schools
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Check out the creative, fun ways these schools have educated their school community and become students involved.
Students, Parents and Schools join in to make Clean Commute Week a success!
Thank you to everyone for helping make the first ever Clean Commute Week a success. We saw a lot of great, creative ideas and activities to reduce traffic and air pollution happening in schools all over GA. Below are a few highlights. Please check out the Calendar of Events for upcoming events and resources and for opportunities to win a visit from the Clean Air Bair!
High Meadows School Takes On Air Pollution With Persuasive Communication
Roswell, GA: Traffic at a school’s campus can be hectic, particularly in the morning and afternoon. It impacts time, health, environment, safety and even money. At High Meadows, environmental science teacher and Clean Air Schools champion, Michelle Griffin understands that air quality and transportation education is cross-curricular and can be linked to virtually any subject matter. This year, her 4th and 5th grade students decided to tackle No Idling as part of a lesson on conflict negotiation and persuasive writing. What better time to launch their program than during Clean Commute Week!
To educate the school community on the effects of idling vehicles, the students wrote articles, made signs, and even did a bit of marching through their campus. They recognized that the key to success would be approaching the drivers as they entered the school zone and explaining their point of view in an educational, non-confrontational way. The Clean Air Bair made a surprise visit to the school and join in the fun when he heard about all of their efforts. The entire school community was excited and rallied around the students’ message. They even made it into the local online paper! Way to go High Meadows for the great success during Clean Commute Week!
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Flippen Elementary School Boosts Bus Ridership for Cleaner Air
Henry County: Flippen Elementary School celebrated Clean Commute Week by using the week to kick off their educational campaign for the Ride the Bus program. After participating in Pool to School the year before, Tina Cardinali, the school science chair and Clean Air Schools champion, wanted to continue their efforts reduce the number of daily vehicles arriving at their campus by promoting bus ridership.
Her team decided to host a “Try-It” week during Clean Commute Week. Every student was encouraged to ride the bus during the week and give it a try. Mrs. Cardinali distributed punch cards provided in her Clean Air Schools toolkit. Students lined up anxiously every morning to have their cards punched each time they road the bus. Every student who collected 5 punches during the week was entered into a drawing to win a grand prize!
As a result of this creative educational campaign, Flippen Elementary saw a great increase in bus ridership during the week. Not only did the students enjoy spending time with friends on the bus, but parents enjoyed extra time in the morning. Flippen will continue to work with The Clean Air Campaign and their school community throughout the year to keep the momentum up and the number of riders high. Congratulations for a successful Clean Commute Week and for meeting your goal!
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Big Shanty Intermediate School Puts Fun, Timely Twist on Clean Commute Week
Cobb County: Clean Air Schools champion Jamee Douglas incorporated Clean Commute Week activities into her 5th grade classroom. Because Clean Commute Week aligned with Halloween this year, they had the creative idea of making No Idling scarecrows! This was a fun, new experience for many of the students! Parents and Grandparents joined in the fun, and a local print shop donated custom signs containing air quality facts for the scarecrows to hold. Mrs. Douglas included air quality facts into her science lesson to compliment the project.
They also launched a Clean Commute Week challenge, where classrooms competed to be the “cleanest” classroom of the week. The entire school completed kept track of how they got to school and home each day, using the Clean Commute Logs in the Clean Commute Week toolkit. The ‘cleanest’ classroom won an ice-cream party. Mrs. Douglas also reached out to other members of the school. School nurse Bev Jones recorded a special segment for the morning news discussing with a student anchor the effects of air pollution on a person’s lungs. Along with four other schools, Big Shanty received a visit from the Clean Air Bair during the week. Look for other opportunities to win a visit from the Clean Air Bear in the New Year!
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