Final Project Title
Slow It, Don’t Blow It
How many students heard the message of your project?
600
Estimated percentage of your student body?
91-100%
Who has your project aimed to reach? (check all that apply)
Freshman class | Sophomore class | Junior class | Senior class | School professionals | Parents | Community at large
Objective: Clearly state the objective of your project.
Saint Joseph High School students have encouraged their peers and teenage drivers to “Slow it, Don’t Blow It”. The number of teenage drivers driving over the speed limit has been increasing and is a cause for concern in our surrounding community. Even in our own school, students are speeding out of the parking lot and ignoring speed bumps and other precautions that are in place for pedestrian safety. Our goal was to promote safe driving through obeying speed limit laws to best protect our students, faculty, and local community.
Target Audience
The target audience for this project were the following: – Freshman class – Sophomore class – Junior class – Senior class – School professionals – Parents – Community at large
Execution: Describe your project and its implementation
Our project is to inform drivers (especially new drivers), to be safe on the roads, whether it be wearing their seatbelt, driving slowly, or anything that would cause less accidents and injuries. We participated in the “Middlesex County 3D- “Don’t Drive Dangerously” PSA Contest” where we created a video and audio entry in order to show how dangerous speeding and not wearing your seatbelt can be. We also handed out car magnets in order to encourage kids around our school to be safe drivers, and to “Slow it, Don’t Blow It”. We have seen a decrease in speed around our school, revealing that our project has succeeded.
Teamwork: Show how you worked as a team in designing and implementing your project (examples: sign-in-sheets at meetings, photos of group working on tasks).
We met once a week (usually on Wednesdays) to work on our project. Our moderator, Mr. Chedid, used a sign-in sheet at meetings to keep track of attendance of group members working on the project. While doing work, we split into groups that allowed each of us to use our strengths to make our project better. We handed car magnets around the school in 3 separate teams who could easily get the job done. We also gave people roles, like editing, making the script, and filming, in the video and audio making process. This allowed members to do their best in whatever category they excel in and enjoy.
Use of resources: Show how you used local resources to help identify. deliver, assess and present your project (examples: nearby colleges, local police departments, persons affected by teen crashes, local/county/state governments, local businesses).
We filmed our video and handed out car magnets at our school. The school was the most accessible meeting place to record our video with a large enough driving space to do what was needed. We gave the car magnets out at the school because that is where a lot of young, new drivers would be, so we can spread the message to people who need to hear it. The school also was an easy place where we could all be together and meet.
Use of media: Document how you made use of media in your project (examples: local radio, TV, newspapers, social media, websites, video, PSAs)
For our project we made an Instagram account, @Falcons4Safety, used the school announcements to get our school to hear our message, and we created video and audio entries for the Middlesex County 3D- “Don’t Drive Dangerously” PSA Contest in order to teach people about the safety of driving. At the time of making this, our Instagram account has 10 posts, 70 followers, and is following 172 people. The announcement we made reached every single person at Saint Joseph High School on May 3, 2021.
Thoroughness: Show how your project demonstrates an understanding of teen driving safety
Speeding was a factor in 26% of all traffic fatalities in 2019, killing 9,478, or an average of over 25 people per day. Our slogan — Slow It, Don’t Blow It — encourages people to slow down when driving on the roads and sends a message to new teen drivers. Not only does our slogan apply to distracted or drunk driving for cars, our Instagram page also has safety rules for riding bikes, electric scooters, being on the roads in general, and crossing the roads on crosswalks. These safety rules are important for drivers of the road as they are spreading the message to be aware of the dangers of the road and be aware of your surroundings at all times. By following these safety rules, which are explained further on our Instagram page, we can all understand how to be safe on the roads.
Impact: Explain how you measured change and impact of your project.
We measured the change and impact of our project by making a school-wide announcement, handing out 350 magnets & 500 flyers, and posting safe-driving messages on our Instagram account to raise awareness about the dangers of speeding and how we should all slow down when driving. We gained around 70 followers on Instagram since the start of our campaign and we mainly used this platform to measure the impact our campaign had on our community.
Sustainability: How will your project have a lasting effect within your target group?
After spreading all our magnets and flyers to our community at Saint Joseph High School, many students stuck their magnets onto their vehicles and spread our slogan with the various flyers handed out. With this system, not only did members of our school community see our efforts to spread safety, but others on the road that belong to our community also came across our brand. Along with posting magnets and flyers across the school community and social media, our club spoke to various students of the Senior class and Junior class about being safe when driving and encouraged them to slow down as they make their way to school. On Instagram, we will continue to post images for our followers and will promote our handle so our platform expands. Because so many people utilize social media in this era, our posts are and will be there for all to see.
Unexpected Lessons Learned: Describe any unintended results that came out of your project.
When completing this project, members of the Falcons for Safety Club learned a number of invaluable lessons. Lessons learned include learning basic safety, how to edit videos, how to design flyers, and coordinate events. However, members of the club also came across unexpected challenges. Much of the information we learned about basic safety came from our Driver’s Education class in Sophomore year of school, resulting in limited proficiency. Many lessons were learned from this project and can be applied to various parts of our lives.
Despite the many challenges we faced, we also faced many unintended results that benefited our campaign. One particular thing we did not intend to happen was that we got many of the Falcon parents to take out advertisements and spread the word out beyond the Saint Joseph community. Not only were the students spreading the word, parents played a big role in making our campaign successful.
Stipend Reporting: Your school received a stipend to support your Champion School Teen Driving Safety Project. Additionally, any funds that you raised as a result of your project must be reinvested into transportation safety. The purpose of this report is to itemize expenditures for your project that were paid from the stipend
Magents $532.10
$532.10
Did your school project raise any funds as a result of the stipend received? For example, did your school utilize the stipend to purchase t-shirts for a fundraiser?
NO
