Idle Free Schools

Making it a Student Project

Involving students in an idling reduction campaign at your school could be extremely beneficial
to the students and could make the campaign much more successful. This could be undertaken
as a science project or a community involvement project.

Students could be involved throughout the entire project in as many or as few ways as the

school determines most appropriate. Some examples of student involvement are:

•	They can learn how to run a public service campaign by being involved in the project from
start to finish.

•	They can learn about air quality issues and the pollution emitted from vehicles from the
presentations available in the Toolkit (See "Idle Free Schools Presentation" and "Clean
School Bus Teachers Guide").

•	They can conduct all, or some, of the vehicle idling observations (See "How to Conduct
Observations").

•	They can work with real life data. Data collection, management and analysis are strong
mathematical skills to learn (See Analyzing the Data").

•	They can also present the data (both on the problem before the campaign and on the
results of the campaign) as a science project or to the PTA, providing them with invaluable
public speaking skills.

•	They can coordinate the letters and pledges, collect the pledge sheets and track them by
classroom.

•	They can learn vital interpersonal skills during the Driver Contact event (See "How to
Conduct the Driver Contact Event").

Perhaps most importantly, students could be provided with the opportunity to see a project

through from beginning to conclusion, seeing real results of their efforts at their own school.

Involving students in this project can be a very powerful experience for them.

Turn Your Key, Be Idle Free!

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