Experiences

Safety in the street. A safe way home

Maria Deptuła-Chocholska

Poland

Primary school

ICT

Teaching in class

Direct

Safety - my way to school. Children that are brought to school and to homes by cars lack basic knowledge of principles of foot traffic in the street. I even met students who had never used public transport and are not able to get anywhere on their own. The problem is how to cross the road in safe way. Street through the car window is perceived in a different way. At the same time students are inseparable of tablets and cells. So my proposal is a combination of virtual reality and real life to learn safe movement on the streets and roads. The task for the children was to prepare and to describe the safest way from home to school. They had public transportation and foot traffic at disposal. They determined the route using Google maps, online schedules. Each route had to take into account travel time, comfort and safety. It was also important to take into account time of year and time of day, reflector or light - because visible pedestrian is a safe pedestrian. Students selected crossroads with regard if they have traffic lights or not. The priority of the entire project was the safety, so they had to be especially careful at grade crossings and tram crossings. Each road was described in Word with illustrations indicating the most dangerous places - pictures copied from Google maps. The results were small book guides presenting the way to every home.
Such a different perspective on street drew attention of children to the rights and duties of a pedestrian, as well as of the rules of behavior on the bus or the tram. Each student presented his presentation on the whiteboard giving reasons for the choice. Then together we established the route to the nearest confectionary and as a prize at the next lesson we went for ice cream in accordance with the rules of the road safety. I think this was the most convincing argument to follow the principles of the safety in the street.