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The Student Commute: Realities and
Solutions for Analy High School, Analy High School AP Statistics Class and
Cool Schools / Climate Protection Campaign, Sebastopol
The Advanced
Placement (AP) Statistics class at Analy High School has been working on a
year long transportation project. Instead of using arbitrary statistics from
a textbook the class uses data that it obtained from a survey of students at
school.
With the help
of the Sonoma County Climate Protection campaign, the class learned about
the effects that pollutants and emissions have on the environment. Certain
gases that trap heat in the atmosphere are called greenhouse gases, or GHGs.
Automobiles emit a great deal of GHGs. And with the number of people
attending Analy High School exceeding 1400, the emissions generated by the
school community are excessive, contributing negatively to global warming.
The
Statistics class decided to determine exactly how many tons of GHGs are
emitted by students and then establish a reduction target to achieve by the
end of the year. They sampled 250 students at school, asking them how many
single passenger car trips they take to get to and from school in one week,
where they live, and what type of car they drive. They then created a
database of the results and desegregated the data by year in school or
distance from school. They calculated the averages for these groups and
converted those averages into year-long totals.
The next task
was to inform the community of their findings. With the help of community
members they presented their preliminary finding to the school board and
city council. A more extensive presentation was held in the Analy High
School Auditorium, with an audience that include traffic engineers, city
council members, police department members, and bike coalition groups.
The event was
well publicized, with articles in the local and county paper. Because of
this, there has been extended community support to help work on the project.
The next steps for the class are to meet with the groups involved and set
out a plan to reduce the traffic commute. They are going to create incentive
programs and positive image campaigns in order to increase the number of
people who walk, bike or carpool to school. After the program is in place,
the students are going to re-survey the students and see if their work was
successful.
Based on
their work, school officials will create a plan to involve parents and
students at the start of the 2006-2007 school year, hoping to reduce the
GHGs and traffic by 20% below this year's totals. Next year's AP class will
continue to follow up on the work of the transportation project, with their
hope of reducing the emissions even more.
TEENS DRIVE POINT HOME WITH COMMUTING STUDY:
Analy Class Finds Students, Parents Travel 42,000 Miles
Weekly To, From Campus
Byline: Kerry Benefield, February 2, 2006, © 2006- The
Press Democrat
Programs promoting car pooling may be largely aimed at
adult commuters, but a study by Analy High School students suggests that
solo driving is a habit that becomes ingrained almost as soon as teens are
handed a set of keys.
A study conducted by the school's advanced placement
statistics class found that about 40 percent of Analy students who live
within one mile of the Sebastopol campus drive alone to school.
``It's ridiculous,'' said Julie Wesler-Buck, an Analy
senior who worked on the study. ``It was shocking to me how many people
drove alone. They probably don't even realize what they are putting into the
environment, how much gas they are using and that it makes the roads more
congested.''
Solo driving is not an issue isolated to Analy,
according to school officials from around Sonoma County.
``I think parents are much more willing to hand cars to
their kids; it's a kind of right of passage,'' said Mike Rea, executive
director of the West County Transportation Agency, which provides bus
service for a declining number of students in the west county. ``There is
just this expectation that that is supposed to happen.''
Analy instructor David Casey and the 30 students in his
class quantified the impacts of student commute patterns, hoping to persuade
them to change their driving habits.
The class found that parents and students are driving
42,000 miles a week to and from campus and pumping 50,000 pounds of
greenhouse gases into the air. And they are using 2,500 gallons of gasoline
a week just for trips to and from school.
``That just blows my mind,'' Casey said.
The students will present their findings at a community
forum on campus tonight.
``I think they (students) are so unaware of the
environmental impacts of driving because it is so part of their culture,''
Casey said. ``They need some work in what they can do as an individual, so
my work is really just beginning.''
Paradoxically, a new state law intended to promote
driver safety makes it harder for students to double-up in their cars.
As of Jan. 1, for the first year they have their
licenses, 16- and 17-year-olds are barred from transporting passengers
younger than 20.
But those are just the drivers that environmental
groups are targeting in car pool promotions.
``If you can change the high school culture -- these
are the people who are really close to becoming commuters,'' said Joan Marx,
a founding member of Gunn Organization for Alternative, Safe Transportation
(GOFAST).
The GOFAST program in Palo Alto has increased bike
riding to campus by 31 percent and tripled the number of students who car
pool.
Marx will be the keynote speaker at tonight's community
forum.
Although the study's findings may be surprising, even
some of those involved in the project concede the realities of modern life
make it a challenge to get around in a way that is environmentally
sensitive.
``I take a class at the JC, I play sports, I do all
these other things that require me to go somewhere else right after class,''
said Wesler-Buck. ``Unfortunately, there are a lot of situations where it's
hard to car pool.''
You can reach Staff Writer Kerry Benefield at 526-8671
or kbenefield@pressdemocrat.com.
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