Steps
- HAND OUT – Hand out student booklets
- WATCH – Cue up the video below and watch it with the class
- THINK – Give students time to reflect and complete their booklet
- SHARE – Have students share their ideas with the class or work in their groups
- CONSIDER – Go deeper by adding an activity from the extension buffet below
- COLLECT – Collect workbooks till the next session
- FEEDBACK – Record your feedback below
Extension Buffet
- DISCUSS – Some cities, like Vancouver mentioned in the video pride themselves on being walkable. Is your city walkable? What could make your city easier for self-propelled modes of transportation?
- DAY IN THE LIFE – Have students consider and discuss how their lives would be different if they didn’t own a car. How would their modes of travel change from season to season? What would a day in their life look like?
- WATCH – A history of transportation (2:33)
- MAP IT – Make a biking/walking map of your community. Include your house, grocery store, school, and any other places your family goes often. Add in the distances. Colour code the map showing places you can walk (closest), bike (middle distances – varies according to how far you can ride), and drive (places too far to walk or bike). Are any of the places you normally drive actually close enough to bike or walk?
- ECOCHALLENGE – Can your class bike, skateboard, or walk everywhere for an entire week? Keep track of how far you go by car, by bike, and by walking for the week you chose. For extra motivation, challenge others too!
- WATCH – Local Columbia Basin professional athlete Greg Hill tries to make transport to his adventures more sustainable (20 min)
- WATCH – This greener transportation video shows some Seattle students who have made a difference in their City (5:53)
- JOURNAL- What existing mode of transportation would you like to experience? Imagine your journey from start to finish.
- INVENT IT – Have students invent a new method of transportation. How does it work? Where does its fuel come from? Is it renewable?
More information of transportation systems would really help students understand this lesson better. They had a hard time thinking about what other energy sources could be used to fuel transportation systems. We ended up searching on the internet for more ideas.
The students are getting really bored with the videos.
Students had a great understanding of this topic. We looked at Vancouver and other major cities that are densely populated and what options are available (bike lanes, bike shares, car shares, buses, sky train, and so forth). Many of the ideas behind car shares and bike shares were known to my students. I know there is Kootenay Car Share Cooperative. It would be great to include local ideas of what is being done in our current area. As we live in remote areas that are heavily reliant on cars, what solutions are available for this area that cannot rely on mass transit.
It would be great to see what new and current technologies are currently being implemented. I happened to read an article about the first hydrogen-powered train that is currently running in Germany. This also has a local connection to the University of British Columbia with local initiatives trying to be implemented in BC. As this area is constantly changing, I think introducing these ideas (as long as the current technology currently exists) is crucial for our students to see and recognize that new concepts are constantly being implemented and tested.
I also liked the section on what students can do to make a difference. As many of our students are within 8-10 years of voting, students do have a voice that local governments will listen to.
We have started working on our cities through the last couple of lessons, as the students wanted to “get to it” and incorporate their collaborated ideas right away. I think in our case, the transportation lesson would have been better sooner.
There is a car share program in our community, which sparked more interest and more discussion. More info on different modes of transportation was needed with this lesson.
Students enjoyed coming up with a variety of solutions for transportation in their communities of the future. Some had concerns about electric batteries, others looked at using magnets, and some hoped to make their communities walkable/bikeable. Again, additional information would be helpful as these lessons require students to already have significant knowledge of the topic or to know where to find it. Transportation ideas with pro / cons that consider all aspects including batteries, how we dispose of /recycle them would improve this lesson.
We did a quick draw activity on what students think a “vehicle of the future” would be. There were some really innovative ideas that came up. We then watched the BR video on transportation and discussed how we could have a more walkable city. We also watched the History of Transportation video in the extension buffet. I would have liked to see some more resources added in for students (videos, blogs etc.) so that more discussion on transportation can be had. It would be nice to see samples from communities around the world that have walkable cities and what they do.
Living in a community where many students walk and bike around town was great to get students thinking outside of the box for transportation. We don’t have many public transit options that was a part of our class discussion. On Minecraft for Education we explored their electric bus stations and brainstormed other options together as a class. One of the biggest confusions that students had was wanting to add gas stations to their community designs when they were using electric buses or cars in their community.