This lesson plan features themes introduced by the film and book from the project, No Impact Man, which follows a family in New York City as they examine how they live, exchange old habits for more environmentally-friendly ones, and discover in the process that such changes actually make them happier and healthier. Educators can use this lesson to help students explore how improved street design could encourage more of their classmates to use active forms of transportation to get to school. This lesson was produced with assistance from our partner Livable Streets Education.
By the end of this lesson, students will:
Civics, Geography, Language Arts
One 50-minute class period
“Bike Ride to the Beach” (length: 1:17):The clip begins at 1:03:35 with Michelle and Colin riding their bikes through the city. It ends at 1:04:52 when Colin says, “We’re still in New York City.”
To access this video clip, please find the link to it in the e-mail you received when you registered.
1. Take a class poll to determine what form of transportation each student used to get to school today. (Likely answers will include via car, bus, bike, walking, etc.) Help students organize the class data in a simple table or bar graph. (If time permits, students could instead present this data in a pie chart with percentages.)
3. Point out that the best forms of transportation for the environment and for human health are powered by humans rather than fossil fuels, and don’t pollute the air. These forms are called, “active transportation” and include activities like biking, walking, rollerblading, riding scooters, skateboarding, etc. In addition to helping the environment, active transportation is good exercise, reduces traffic congestion, is typically less stressful than driving, and is significantly cheaper and more fun. When active transportation isn’t possible, the next best methods of transportation are to use mass transit or to carpool. These options also reduce traffic congestion, and they have a lower environmental impact than driving alone. Given our existing transportation infrastructure, most Americans use cars and trucks to get around, and this has a major impact on the environment. In fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says driving a private vehicle is one of our most polluting daily activities. (Source: EPA)
4. Environmental writer Colin Beavan wonders if our cars make us happy. In his book, No Impact Man, he assembled some statistics that show what he calls the “true cost” of our cars. Display the book excerpt and review each bullet point.
5. Point out that streets in the U.S. have been built to favor cars, rather than pedestrians, cyclists, and others who use active transportation. To illustrate this point, tell the class that they are going to watch a video clip (length 1:17) that shows Beavan and his wife in New York City on a bike excursion to the beach. Focus student viewing by having them evaluate how well the streets along their route are designed to serve cars, cyclists, and pedestrians. You may need to watch the clip a couple of times to notice fine details. (Note: To help students better understand the dialogue in the clip, you might want to remind students that the man in the video writes about environmental issues.)
7. Explain that New York City and a number of cities around the country are taking a close look at the design of their streets in order to make them more walkable, bike-friendly, and transit-oriented. For example, to improve safety for cyclists and encourage more people to ride their bikes, New York City has installed 200 miles of bike routes. As a result, commuter cycling has increased 66% in the past two years.
8. Tell students that they are going to do some street design of their own by looking at the roads near your school and recommending changes that would both improve safety and encourage more students to use active transportation like cycling to get to school.
9. Display an aerial view of your school and the surrounding roads. (Choose the best image of your school in advance from services like Mapquest.com, Maps.Google.com, or National Geographic’s Map Machine.)
10. Ask students to take turns pointing out specific areas around the school where safety could be improved for cyclists. List these “areas of concern” on the board and number them for easier reference. Then show them the Streetfilms video, “NYC DOT Explains Bike Lanes in the Big Apple” (length 5:39) and ask them to take notes on the different street design strategies shown for improving bicycle safety.
11. For homework, have students each choose one “area of concern” listed on the board and determine which bike lane or other street design strategy would best improve safety in that location so more students would be encouraged to use active transportation to get to school. Students should describe the current safety concerns in writing and explain how their proposed strategy would improve the situation. Students should also provide a “before” and “after” sketch to illustrate the safer conditions their recommendation would bring.
Students can be assessed on:
Learn about efforts of public transit to integrate and balance the economic, environmental, and social needs of communities
The League of American Bicyclists shares interesting statistics that make the case for biking over traveling by car. For example, 82 percent of trips five miles or less are made by personal motor vehicle. Such car trips are more polluting on a per-mile basis than longer trips.
This page provides a brief summary of statistics related to the impact of automobiles on the environment.
These short video clips from the Livable Streets Initiative address urban planning and transportation issues to help design streets for people and places, not cars and traffic.
This list provides interesting statistics related to active transportation issues.
Find out where you can participate in a car sharing program – access to a network of cars on a pay-per-use basis.
These standards are drawn from “Content Knowledge,” a compilation of content standards and benchmarks for K-12 curriculum by McRel (Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning)
Behavioral Studies, Standard 1: Understands that group and cultural influences contribute to human development, identity and behavior.
Civics, Standard 14: Understands issues concerning the disparities between ideals and reality in American political and social life.
Civics, Standard 23: Understands the impact of significant political and nonpolitical developments on the United States and other nations.
Civics, Standard 28: Understands how participation in civic and political life can help citizens attain individual and public goals.
Geography, Standard 1: Understands the characteristics and uses of maps, globes, and other geographic tools and technologies.
Geography, Standard 3: Understands the characteristics and uses of spatial organization of Earth’s surface.
Geography, Standard 14: Understands how human actions modify the physical environment.
Geography, Standard 15: Understands how physical systems affect human systems.
Language Arts, Standard 1: Uses the general skills and strategies of the writing process.
Language Arts, Standard 4: Gathers and uses information for research purposes.
Language Arts, Standard 7: Uses reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of informational texts.
Language Arts, Standard 9: Uses viewing skills and strategies to understand and interpret visual media.
Working With Others, Standard 1: Contributes to the overall effort of a group.
Cari Ladd, M.Ed., is an educational writer with a background in secondary education and media development. Previously, she served as PBS Interactive’s Director of Education, overseeing the development of curricular resources tied to PBS programs, the PBS TeacherSource Web site (now PBS Teachers), and online teacher professional development services. She has also taught in Maryland and Northern Virginia.
This lesson is inspired by the work of Colin Beavan (aka “No Impact Man”), who got tired of listening to himself complain about the world without ever actually doing anything about it. So in November 2006, he launched his year-long “No Impact Man” experiment in which he, his wife, his two-year-old daughter and their dog attempted to live in the middle of New York City with as little environmental impact as possible. They tried to adopt new everyday habits that would be less harmful to the planet, and discovered in the process that such changes also make them happier and healthier. Along the way, Beavan blogged about his adventures and attracted broad public attention to environmental issues, including those related food, consumption, water, energy, and transportation. Beavan’s experiment in lifestyle redesign is the subject of his No Impact Man book and a Sundance-selected documentary by independent film producers Laura Gabbert and Eden Wurmfeld.
Livable Streets Education (LSE) inspires students and families to make the change they want to see on their streets and in their neighborhoods. Our learning units are designed to weave pertinent ideas about urban livability and sustainability with school day learning standards. We also work with schools, city agencies, and community-based organizations to do specialized programming. For more information about our program visit www.streetseducation.org