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GETTING AROUND CLEAN AND GREEN
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Introduction and Chapter 1: An Introduction to Transportation and the Environment (531 Kbytes)
Chapter 2: Transportation and Air Quality (747 Kbytes)
Chapter 3: Carpooling and the Environment (418 Kbytes)
Chapter 4: Mass Transit (272 Kbytes)
Chapter 5: Getting Around Clean & Green: A Challenge (302 Kbytes)
GETTING AROUND CLEAN AND GREEN
INTRODUCTION
In this unit, students will explore their own transportation choices. They will also research the impacts various transportation options have on air quality, human health, and the environment, and will discover that they can make choices that will reduce many of the negative impacts of getting around in a car. Along the way, students will conduct research, work with graphs and charts, carry out surveys, and analyze the results. The final student project, a Travel Guide of Clean & Green Ways to Get to Fun and Interesting Places, allows students to integrate all of what they've learned into a guide that will help friends and families get out and have fun while leaving the car (emissions) at home.
UNIT OVERVIEW
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION TO TRANSPORTATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT
In this first lesson, students will identify their own transportation patterns
and begin to consider the social and environmental costs and benefits associated
with different modes of travel. This personal transportation information will
serve as the basis for later lessons.
Activities: Students will study transportation as a system that includes
goals, inputs, processes, outputs, and feedback. Students will construct charts
and graphs. They will make simple calculations to quantify how they, and the
class as a whole, get around.
CHAPTER 2
TRANSPORTATION AND AIR QUALITY
This lesson addresses automobile pollutants and their effect on human health
from an historic perspective. Students will realize that the challenge of
reducing pollution from our transportation systems is an on-going struggle and
that, although much is yet to be done, much has already been accomplished.
Activities: Students will research automobile pollutants, their effect on
human health, and the historic efforts of those who are working for change. By
constructing and interpreting timelines, students will evaluate the importance
of social pressure in the acceptance of new technologies. By working with data,
and constructing, reading, and interpreting graphs, students will analyze the
effects of emission-reduction legislation and will come to their own conclusions
about the effectiveness of pollution prevention efforts.
CHAPTER 3
CARPOOLING AND THE ENVIRONMENT
This and the next two lessons look at transportation choices students can make
that will have a positive impact on reducing pollution and its negative impacts
on human health and the environment. By helping students understand that there
are opportunities for action, we will empower them to become active, responsible
citizens.
Activities: Students will conduct a data-gathering survey on the extent
carpooling occurs in their community. Through simple calculations, students will
quantify the pollution-saving value of carpooling. Students will design a
carpool plan for their class.
CHAPTER 4
MASS TRANSIT
This lesson includes a brief introduction to the concept of mass transit but
focuses primarily on the logistical and practical aspects of using local mass
transit systems.
Activities: Students will interpret mass transit schedules and evaluate
what it means for a mass transit system - a sample transportation system - to be
successful. Students will read charts and graphs to plan a mass transit outing.
CHAPTER 5
GETTING AROUND CLEAN AND GREEN: A STUDENT CHALLENGE
This lesson draws on all that the students have learned by challenging them to
produce a practical Travel Guide of Clean & Green Ways to Get to Fun and
Interesting Places.
Activities: Production of a travel guide acts as the student's
culminating project and provides the teacher with a valuable assessment tool.
Student groups will plan environmentally sound outings to fun and interesting
places of their choice and rate these trips in terms of fun, health, and
environmental impact. The class will then assemble this collection of outings
into a travel guide that they can share with friends, families, or the community
at large.
RESOURCES
This unit supplies teachers with the necessary background information to bring
the theme of clean and green transportation into the classroom. When information
specific to a local setting is required, the unit directs the teacher on how to
find that information. Although the unit provides background reading for
students, it suggests web addresses and other resources that can further student
research.