SÉCURITÉ ROUTIÈRE COLEGIO MONTESSORI 2017 9th graders 10th graders 11th graders DEPARTEMENT DE FRANÇAIS

Collaborative project among ninth, tenth and eleventh grades with the objective of sensitizing both the educational community, students, parents and employees as well as the community surrounding it. This project arises as a result of an analysis carried out by the students on a problem of mobility identified inside and outside the school.

Identification of the issue within the community  Due to the large number of vehicles and pedestrians that move day by day in the institution, the students showed their concern and decided to focus on the most imminent dangers such as double parking, large auditory contamination, lack of pedestrian crossings, lack of road culture in some of the parents and lack of safety and mobility knowledge of the adolescents.   Facing these problems, students proposed a series of simple solutions and tangible actions that could be carried out during peak hours (arriving and leaving school). For the transmission of the messages different strategies and means were used in order to achieve a greater impact in the community. Visual communication campaigns, exhibitions, conferences, games and field actions were then used.

Relevance of the approach The students identified two different fronts of work among the different groups that compose the school’s community, the drivers and the pedestrians or passengers. The idea was to determine the strategies create awareness. For example: some games were designed for Elementary School children in order to recognize road signs and inappropriate behaviors so that they could be alert to possible risks. With teenagers we worked through a presentation, a conference and a Kahoot question game. With the adults, the strategy to create awareness was done through talks, posters and flyers.

Capacity to transmit the message The messages of the different groups were clear to the extent that each activity was designed to reach the level of those who would see. In this way, it was paid too much attention to the vocabulary used, the phrases formulated and the images that would support the campaign. Similarly, the presenters used a simple language to facilitate the understanding of the activity and encouraged the interaction among the students and the presenters by asking questions or giving explanations.

Creativity The different groups wanted to propose activities that although they might seem simple, they would generate the expected impact. An example of this impact was the motivation generated by the infographics as they made the students who participated in the activities of the exhibition, want to answer the questions around the images. Many of them were even committed to take the message home and behave like active agents and multipliers of the information, so that mobility would feel like something close that concerns us all.

…Creativity The campaign conducted by 10th grade students involved the parents. The students explained to them certain important rules and behaviors in road safety and later the same parents joined the campaign as multipliers of information. Parents and workers felt that their behavior was important to the institution and that they were part of the change, the idea was that they understood that they could set an example with their actions and prevent multiple accidents from taking place.

Impact After the activities carried out by the 11th graders, some parents joined the “Good Road Behavior Campaign and some real-life images with messages about mobility were designed. On the other hand, the school decided to place some speed bumps on the way to reduce the speed of the vehicles that enter to the internal route of the school.

…Impact Contrary to what might be thought, this activity had a great impact on the small students as they expressed during the presentation that their parents, or the adults that surround them, make great mistakes when driving. So it can be said that the campaign was able to create awareness in children and the impact was produce not only inside, but also outside of the Institution.

Participation Students from 1st to 11th grade participated as exhibitors or as participants in the different activities. On the other hand, employees and parents, as well as occasional school visitors, were also invited to participate in the activities.

Quality of material Games for Elementary students generated great motivation. The presentation was well organized and with clear and direct messages. The question game allowed us to internalize the information presented. The explanation and the handouts given to parents brought them closer to the idea of the school’s ​​expected road behavior.