Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow
How many students heard the message of your project?
200
Estimated percentage of your student body?
81-90%
Who has your project aimed to reach?
Freshman class, Sophomore class, Junior class, Senior class, School professionals, Parents, Community at large
Objective:
The objective of this project was to combat distracted driving because it is an issue that is extremely prevalent throughout all members of our society. In this project, we also wanted to focus on education about distracted driving in our community and inspiring others to take action. Lastly, in our initiative we highlighted the idea of sharing the road between cars, pedestrians, bikers and more to ensure that everyone drives in a more effective manner. Overall, this project was created with the goal of combating distracted driving as a whole for all members of society.
Target Audience:
The target audience of our project is the MATES Student Body and the surrounding community. This includes all grade levels that constitute MATES and the students that reside close to the school.
Execution:
This project involved multiple steps, as we wanted to focus on distracted driving as a whole and for multiple groups of society. First off, we held numerous meetings with about 30 people at each meeting (about 15% of our school) to discuss the goals and implementation of our project. From there, we produced multiple informational videos for students and the community and held outside meetings and events. Other ways in which we spread our message were through a safe driving parking spot giveaway and a t-shirt design contest with the ability to get a shirt if you completed the Nikhil safe driving pledge. Additionally, we designed and created yard signs and distributed them throughout the county to ensure that people of all ages and from all locations were exposed to our message. Next, we had very active social media accounts because we wanted to reach many of our students as well as their parents and members of the community. On our social media we continuously posted the Brain Injury Alliance content, made weekly Safe Driving Saturday driving safety tips, and other fun content such as Live Videos, Reels and more. We were able to culminate our project by doing a month long celebration of our mission during April, which is distracted driving awareness month. During this time, we did announcements in our school regarding distracted driving awareness, created information signs and bulletin boards, and did lots of fun giveaways to get everyone involved. Overall, a lot went into making this project successful but it was definitely worth it because we were able to reach a large number of individuals.
Teamwork:
Throughout our project, there was a lot of teamwork involved! We had multiple meetings where individuals were able to bond with each other in order to plan and execute aspects of our project. Additionally, our team worked together to make content for our social media, signs to hang around our school, conduct research for public service announcements, and design our bulletin boards. It was a beneficial experience for everyone involved because they were able to get involved in meaningful ways. Our initiative would not have been as successful without help from all of our members!
Use of resources:
Through our project, we were able to use many local resources to help spread our messages. For example, when we created our yard signs, we distributed some to local businesses to display, as many different individuals would be exposed to them this way. Additionally, we did a lot of virtual outreach and participated in presentation conducted by our local governments and police departments. Overall, local resources were certainly very instrumental in achieving our goal.
Use of media:
Social media was a super important aspect of our project. We used Instagram to display images and captions provided by JerseyDrives every Tuesday, and posted special infographics and animations for our Safe Driving Saturday initiative! Along with this, we have recorded several PSA videos that reflect the values of our club with relation to safe driving and biking.
Thoroughness:
An important part of our initiative was conducting background research regarding teen driving safety, which was done by all of our members through numerous sources. Our knowledge of distracted driving is evident through the informational meetings we held, as well as our very active and educational social media. Additionally, it is evident that we have an understanding of teen driving safety because of the bulletin boards and informational signs and announcements we have created. We would not have been able to complete this project without an immense understanding of teen driving safety.
Impact:
The most noticeable way that change and impact were measured through our project was by utilizing a survey that compared how well our target audience’s understanding of distracted driving and driving safety before and after our campaign. In the beginning of our campaign, participants were asked to take a survey with questions about their personal habits and New Jersey driving and biking laws. At the end of our campaign, our target audience was asked to complete the same survey in order for us to quantify the amount of impact our campaign had on our audience. Using statistical analysis, we were able to determine that our school had significantly more knowledge about these topics after our project was conducted. This is important to note because it means that our initiative was extremely successful.
Sustainability:
Our project will have a lasting effect within our target groups because of the activities we planned and the methods we used to get our message across. Through the use of fun activities, our club was able to engage others’ attention and educate them about safe driving and biking. Finally, we utilized teamwork to echo our message within MATES and its surrounding community. Bulletin boards, videos, and infographics helped our campaign have a lasting effect as well!
Unexpected Lessons Learned:
Throughout the duration of our campaign and project, unintended results arose that we were able to learn valuable lessons from. One of these results was our observation that our team members and target audiences were more inclined to do activities that they perceived to be fun and enjoyable. Since this realization, we began to hold more enjoyable and exciting activities for people to participate in!
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
Purchasing t-shirts for giveaways – $250
Yard signs – $150
Other miscellaneous giveaways – $250
Total – $650
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