| Your Anti-Idling School
Program
How can I use this kit to decrease idling at my school?
Start small and keep it simple. Don't try and change the
behaviour of every driving parent at your school all at once. Plan for a 30 to
40 per cent reduction in the number of idling vehicles and you'll be off to a
great start. Remember that some people change faster than others.
The simplest approach
The easiest thing to do is simply update parents about the
Turn Your Key, Be Idle-Free campaign through your school newsletter (see
enclosed School Newsletter Anti-Idling Story Inserts). You can also hang the
enclosed posters in your school where parents will see them.
Use of commitment to increase chances for success
By asking drivers face-to-face to commit to less idling,
you will have a better chance of changing their behaviour and creating an
Idle-Free Zone at your school. If you would like to try this approach:
- Notify parents through your school newsletter about
the anti-idling campaign. Ask them to turn off their engines at school and to
be prepared to make a personal commitment. Let them know that volunteers (or
students) will be approaching them in their cars, on certain dates, to ask them
for a commitment to turn off their engines when parked.
- Over the course of one week, using volunteer parents,
or a class of senior students with teacher supervision, hand out the enclosed
information cards and decal stickers to parents who are waiting at the school
in their vehicles.
- Ask them to display the stickers on their car
windshields as a reminder to turn off their engines.
- You can keep track of the number of drivers who take
the stickers by either counting the stickers or by having volunteers complete
the enclosed Commitment Intervention sheet.
More student involvement
Students can get
involved in the project in other ways, too. Many schools allow students to make
large banners or signs in art class that can be displayed on fences around the
school where drivers congregate. The banners or signs act as a constant
reminder to parents not to idle their engines, and the students can feel proud
knowing they are contributing to this positive behaviour change.
See
enclosed Message to Students lesson plan and curriculum-based activities for
more ideas.
Rating your results
If your school wants to
keep a record of how many drivers are turning off their engines, you can do a
baseline measurement at the start of the project and then periodically check
results against the baseline. To do this:
- Ask parent volunteers, or senior students with teacher
supervision, to observe the drivers around the school and to complete the
enclosed Baseline Data Collection Record. This can be done several times over
the period of a week so you can get a really good idea of how many parents idle
their vehicles at the school. The best time to do this is when idling is most
likely to occur – at the end of the school day.
- Use one of the above mentioned tactics (newsletter
story or face-to-face commitment) to implement your anti-idling campaign.
- After several weeks you can re-do your observations to
see if the number of idling engines outside your school has decreased.
These sorts of observation exercises not only provide
you with tangible results for your project, but also provide students with
hands-on experience in data collection and analytical skills.
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