Academic Standards

Check out the Classroom Ideas below. Each one is linked to one or more standards. Please contact us with your ideas!

Related KEEP Activities

Driving Reasons

Dirty Half Dozen

Get That Gasoline

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Transportation Information

Introduction

Terms to Know

Classroom Ideas

Support Materials

Transportation
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Energy Matters
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☼ Whether the people are inside or out. Automobiles are a story unto themselves. They've come so far in such a short time. They have taken over everywhere. They break thru the forests and the dunes and the mountains and bring civilization faster and wilder than the railroads ever could. They aren't bound by two rails. They suggest an absolute freedom, freedom that could take the mind to anywhere. They can go even where there are no roads; they can run over everything old and suggest a constant present. They seem like so much freedom but they actually are so much dependence. When you gain a car you lose a self. Cars keep driving to the furthest reaches, past where the roads peter out. The people stay inside them, enclosed in glass and steel. ~ John Akre (www.sloppyfilms.com)

Introduction

Many people's daily routines involve travel. We commute to school and work. We go to a store or a shopping mall to buy things. We run errands to the dry cleaner, post office, and photocopy shop. We travel to restaurants, movie theaters, scout meetings, and sporting events. We visit friends and relatives.

Most of Wisconsin travel takes place in a private motor vehicle. Although there are many other modes of transportation - bus, train, bicycle - for some of us, automobiles are the only means of getting to our daily destinations.

Transportation is a major energy user in Wisconsin, comprising over a quarter of total energy use in the state. Nearly all the energy used for transportation comes from one energy resource-petroleum-which is used to make gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel.

Another consideration of transportation is environmental costs. Every gallon of gasoline that is burned emits about 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Automobiles are the primary source of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, that could result in global climate change. In addition to how car production and use affect the environment, building the roads we use to drive cars destroys habitat and adds pollutants to the air, land, and water.

There are many ways car production and use can be managed to save money and to be less damaging toward the environment. One of the first steps is to make sure a car uses fuel efficiently (see What is the MPG?) or to investigate alternative fuels (see Alternative Transportation).

Driving habits and how well the vehicle is maintained can also cause noticeable variations in fuel efficiencies. Inflating the tires to the proper pressure, tuning up the engine, aligning the wheels, and changing the oil and oil filter are maintenance measures that can contribute to increased vehicle efficiency.

We should also become aware of how we travel on a day-to-day basis, and explore using alternative means of transportation to meet our travel needs. Walking, bicycling, carpooling, riding a school bus, and using public transit are alternatives that not only get us to our destinations, but can save us money, reduce traffic congestion, decrease air emissions, and improve energy efficiency as well.

Terms to Know

Carbon dioxide (formula: CO2): A colorless, odorless gas formed during respiration, organic decomposition, and combustion of fossil and other carbon-based fuels. Carbon dioxide is taken up by green plants during photosynthesis, dissolved in bodies of water, and circulated in Earth's atmosphere.

Carbon monoxide (formula: CO) A colorless, odorless, poisonous gas formed by the incomplete burning of carbon-based fuels such as coal, gasoline, natural gas, and wood and listed as a criteria pollutant.

Combustion 1. The process of burning. 2. A rapid chemical change in which a substance reacts with oxygen and generates heat and light

Emissions: The release of gases to the atmosphere, usually resulting from fuel combustion.

Fuel: Substances that are burned or consumed by some means to produce energy.

Ozone: A colorless, odorless, reactive gas composed of three oxygen atoms. Ozone located in the stratosphere (the ozone layer) absorbs ultraviolet radiation that would otherwise be harmful to organisms on Earth's surface. However, ozone located near Earth's surface adversely affects human health.

Classroom Ideas

Guest Speakers

1. Invite a guest speaker from a local car dealership to your classroom to talk about energy-efficient automobiles, such as hybrids.

Sample Academic Standards Addressed:

Science Education H.12.4: Advocate a solution or combination of solutions to a problem in science or technology

Environmental Education D.12.1: Identify a variety of approaches to environmental issues, evaluate the consequences of each, and select and defend a position

Click here to find contacts for guest speakers in your area.

Field Trips
1. Create and lead walking tours of your community
Sample Academic Standards Addressed:
Social Studies A.12.1: Use various types of atlases and appropriate vocabulary to describe physical attributes of a place.

Click here to find field trip ideas in your area.

Activities and Lessons

1. Research the history of the transportation, focusing on a particular topic (number of vehicles, development of the highway system, modes of travel, etc.). Create a vision for the future of technology.
Sample Academic Standards Addressed:
Social Studies B.12.9: Select significant changes caused by technology, industrialization, urbanization, and population growth, and analyze the effects of these changes in the United States and world.
Technology Education D.12.5: Describe current challenges and project future challenges of governing a technology once it has become an integral part of the way people live, work and play.

2. Conduct experiments to investigate various air pollutants or their sources. Some common activities are listed below. If there is an air quality monitoring station nearby, learn what tests they conduct.

Put a white sock on exhaust pipes of different cars and compare emissions by looking at the gray scale of the socks. Caution: Make sure the car is cooled down before the sock is put on and removed; this activity should be conducted in an open area and students should not stand near the car when it is running. When finished, place socks in plastic bags and dispose of properly.
Compare the density of particulate matter as it comes out of different smokestacks. (Simple scales that classify the concentration of pollutants emitted from smoke stacks can be purchased or designed.)
Collect and compare particulate matter from different locations (such as a parking lot, windowsill, and kitchen counter) using a thin layer of petroleum jelly smeared onto a piece of white cardboard.
Buy a carbon monoxide detector and test the air inside the school.
Investigate the effects of acidic water on plants. (Create an acidic solution with lemon and water and use it to water vegetables such as beans or tomato seedlings.)
Check the ozone in your area by participating in a bio-monitoring project. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources sponsors a milkweed bio-monitoring project. Contact them for information or for instructions on how to become a part of the project.

Sample Academic Standards Addressed:
Environmental Education B.12.9: Analyze causes and effects of pollutants and other environmental changes caused by people on human health.
Science G.12.3: Analyze the costs, benefits, or problems resulting from a scientific or technological innovation, including implications for the individual and community

Student Projects
1. Does your school have a parking problem? What about traffic congestion on streets near your school? Perhaps you want to learn about the potential for car pooling. Contact the public transit authority in your county to learn about mass transit options. There are many different investigations related to transportation. Simple tests, such as setting pieces of paper coated with petroleum jelly around your parking lot, provide insight into potential air pollution. Surveying students about how they get to school lets you know who rides in cars, buses, and on bicycles.
Sample Academic Standards Addressed:
Science H.8.3: Understand the consequences of decisions affecting personal health and safety
Environmental Education D.12.5: Develop a plan to maintain or improve some part of the local or regional environmental, and enlist support for implementation of the plan

2. Involve students in an Energy Issue Investigation and Action Project related to alternative vehicles.

3. Have students make a Science Fair presentation about their research into alternative vehicles.

Support Materials

Websites

Wisconsin Department of Transportation

www.dot.wisconsin.gov/

Wisconsin Partners for Clean Air
www.cleanairwisconsin.org/index_educators.php

Getting Around Clean and Green
www.nesea.org/education/edmaterials/CandG.html'

Energy Education Curriculum Project
www.earth.uni.edu/EECP/mid/mod3.html

National Energy Education Development Project
www.need.org/curriculum.php

United We Ride

www.unitedweride.gov/

United We Ride (UWR)is a federal interagency initiative aimed at improving the availability, quality, and efficient delivery of transportation services for older adults, people with disabilities, and individuals with lower incomes. Transportation plays a critical role in providing access to employment, health care, education, community services, and activities necessary for daily living. The importance is underscored by the variety of transportation programs that have been created in conjunction with health and human services programs and by the significant federal investment in accessible public transportation systems throughout the Nation. Ironically, for most people who need transportation help, the creation of more programs has resulted in several unintended consequences. Transportation services are often fragmented, underutilized, or difficult to navigate, and can be costly because of inconsistent, duplicative, and often restrictive federal and state program rules and regulations. And, in some cases, narrowly focused programs leave service gaps, and transportation services are simply not available to meet certain needs.

Association Of Travel Instruction

www.travelinstruction.org/index.html

Association of Travel Instruction (ATI) is committed to the development of competent travel skills for people with disabilities and seniors so they can establish the independence to freely elect to use all modes of public transportation anywhere in the world!

Easter Seals Project Action

http://projectaction.easterseals.com/site/PageServer?pagename=ESPA_homepage

Easter Seals mission is to promote universal access to transportation for people with disabilities under federal law and beyond by partnering with transportation providers, the disability community and others through the provision of training, technical assistance, applied research, outreach and communication.

Tri-Met

www.trimet.org/teachers/index.htm

Teaching Transit: Resources for Educators

You can use these free educational materials to teach your students about the benefits of public transit, and how to be safe around buses and trains.

Safe Routes to Schools

www.saferoutesinfo.org/

Safe Routes to School programs enable community leaders, schools and parents across the United States to improve safety and encourage more children, including children with disabilities, to safely walk and bicycle to school. In the process, programs are working to reduce traffic congestion and improve health and the environment, making communities more livable for everyone.

Creators of the National Model Program

Do you want to start a Safe Routes to Schools program in your community?

The MCBC program offers training, and technical assistance to assist you in developing a comprehensive program that will fit the needs of your community.

Safe Routes to Schools is a popular program spreading across Canada and the U.S. designed to decrease traffic and pollution and increase the health of children and the community. The program promotes walking and biking to school through education and incentives that show how much fun it can be. The program also addresses the safety concerns of parents by encouraging greater enforcement of traffic laws, educating the public, and exploring ways to create safer streets.