Survey the way the people in your
class come to school on any one day.
• Graph the results.
• What do you notice about the results?
Survey cars passing a certain
point on a road for a certain time eg one hour.
• Tally how many people were in each car.
• Graph the results.
• What do you notice about the results?
• How does this relate to air pollution?
Decide on a Smogbuster message
to send to your friends or parents.
• Put it into code.
• Can your friends or parents crack the code?
• Include this message, in code, in your Smogbuster newspaper or school
newsletter.
Find a map covering the way you
come to school. (Use a street directory)
• Copy the map and draw the way you come to school.
• How far do you travel to school?
• Is there a different way for you to get to school?
• Can you get to school by cycling or walking?
Homework or project exercise:
• How much does it cost to run a car for (a) a year? (b) a week?
• Include all insurances, registrations, purchase costs*, petrol**, tyres,
servicing
and anything else that is relevant.
• Ask your parents for information about your cars at home.
* Work out approximately how many years you are likely to keep the car and divide
the cost of the car by that figure to get the yearly cost.
** Petrol - approximate how many kilometres the car is used in a week and use
the cost of
fuel to work out costs.
Use the travel diary in the National
Smogbuster Information Kit (you can find it on the web) to survey a week of
travel for your family.
• If an average small car (1.6litre engine) produces about 200gm (0.2 kilos)
of CO2 per kilometre, how much carbon dioxide did your family car emit this
week?
• Can you suggest any changes to travel patterns that would lessen the
use of the car by the family? (ie less vehicle kilometres travelled).
Investigate the quickest way to
use public transport to get to town.
• How much would a ticket cost for (a) you (b) your parents (c) brothers
and sisters?
• How much would it cost for the whole family to get to town and home again?
• If it costs 48.1 cents per kilometre to travel in the car, which is the
cheaper way of travelling to town? Don’t forget to add in the cost of parking
and any other expenses that are part of the expense of driving to town.
Car sales are increasing yearly.
• Get a map of the school and surrounding streets. Measure the length of
different sorts of cars. Randomly, using the measurements of many different
cars, decide how many cars will fit onto the roads in and around the school.
When roads are full, they are
considered to be gridlocked.
• How many cars (approximately) would it take to gridlock your school roads?
• How many parents drive their children to your school? If they all arrive
at once
will they all fit?
• Can you suggest ways of getting to school that will lessen the congestion
on school roads in the morning and the afternoons?
If you require PDF versions, click here
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