Wednesday, February 11, 2015

"Safety Kids": Local students create music video PSA on biking safety

Kudos to the Challenger Middle School students who created this amazing music video about safe biking and walking.  Watch it and be inspired...help us get the safety word out to other school students.  How about a contest to inspire the creation of more bike/ped safety videos by school students?

Challenger Middle School Students Are "Safety Kids"
by Lisa Indovino


 
Last Spring, Lisa Indovino, All Children's Hospital, Community Educator for Safe Routes to School Lee County teamed up with the school system to deliver pedestrian and bicycle safety curriculum to the students of Challenger Middle School.  A teacher spoke about personal responsibility and how it relates to making safe choices and Indovino delivered curriculum which touched on topics such as distracted walking, the brain and the importance of wearing a helmet, the 5 steps to properly fitting a helmet, bike laws and safe riding, proper bike fit and the ABCQuick Check, and also gave tips for safe walking and biking.

During their visit, a teacher came up with the idea to have the students put together a video/PSA on the topic of pedestrian and bike safety which could be viewed by not only Challenger students, but all K-12 public school students in Lee County.  Wasting no time, the team met with Challenger Middle School teachers from the physical education, health, media, dance, drama, and music departments took place just one week later to set the idea into motion.
Indovino supplied the bicycle helmets for the video and suggested some pieces to be included in the lyrics such as looking Left-Right-Left, wearing bright clothing, and crossing at a crosswalk, and the students and teachers volunteered their time and talents and ran with the rest.  The project passed from the music students who chose a tune and made up lyrics, to the dance and theater students who chose the choreography, and then finally to the media gurus who performed the editing.  The project was a true collaboration all the way from the district level down to the students.

They put together curriculum as well as extension activities for all grade levels (K-12) and subject areas to accompany the PSA which has been disseminated to all district school Principals K-12 and therefore could potentially reach close to 90,000 students in Lee County.  The hope is that students will relate to a PSA produced by their peers and it will inspires them to also be "Safety Kids" along with their very talented peers at Challenger Middle who are setting an amazing example for pedestrian and bicycle safety.

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