More Bikes, Less Cars: What Would The People Say?

Before school this morning, two of our early arrivers, Phoebe and Reuben, went with Mr K to take some photographs of the car wreckers yard behind our school.

When school began we started by discussing 'sustainability' as a class. We also added two new words to our vocabulary - 'renewable' and 'nonrenewable'. We identified examples of things that we use which fell into both of these categories.

Phoebe and Reuben shared their photos and we watched a video about the life cycle of a car. We found that a lot of the reusable parts of a car are recycled. However, we also found out that the leftovers went to landfill (the dump). Apparently, people own 9 cars on average in their lifetimes. We discussed what happens to these after we finish with them, as well as the fuel used to run each car while it is in use. Our conclusion was that petrol-powered cars are not really sustainable.

We made lists of modes of transport that we thought were more sustainable than cars. Many of us came up with decent-sized lists. Some things included skateboards, sail boats, bicycles, rollerblades, electric trains, handcars (thanks Jacob) and walking.

When asked which of these things could be used more by a large number of people, through a voting system we thought that bicycles were the smartest choice. But would the community be willing to use bicycles more? We found this video about how people are reusing bicycles in Havana.

Next, we were split into groups for a circle of viewpoints routine. Each group was asked to discuss how they felt about the possibility of new laws being introduced that meant more bicycles and less cars on the road. Our thoughts were displayed on the wall.

The groups were:

• Car salespeople who sell new vehicles
• Adults who drive cars and use them everyday
• People who work in car wreckers yards
• Us (children)

Now it was role-play time. Mr K announced that he was the mayor and would like to hold a town meeting. We went out to the netball courts, mixed ourselves up so we weren't beside all of the people who we had been working with and gathered together. 

The mayor said that he was thinking of creating some new laws and wanted the community's opinions. A microphone was passed around when someone had something to say. We mentioned some of the points we wrote down in our groups beforehand and also responded to what others were saying. This was a lot of fun because many of us had created make-believe identities and put on different voices!

After the meeting we got together (as ourselves) and discussed the arguments people put forward, while also putting the spotlight on those who we thought were great contributors to the activity. Quaylen's performance, as Professor Jones from Lincoln who didn't want to bike for two hours to work, was a highlight for many. 

The next stage was to do some shared writing with a buddy, on a Google Docs template, about whether we think more should be done to increase the number of bicycle users, while decreasing the number of cars on the road.

We will soon be sharing our writing with the class. The pieces that we believe are fantastic examples will be on display in our classroom. 

We have also started designing our own modern bicycles and making models of them with construction wire. Although, this is proving a lot harder than we imagined! Keep an eye on Twitter for updates.