The Story Behind the Bike Helmet Ordinance
As part of their Social Studies program, students undertook a project to research the development of a new city ordinance. The ordinance would require children to wear bicycle helmets. The students became interested in this project after a student attending a nearby middle school was hit by a car while riding his bicycle. The boy sustained serious head injuries. Reports of the accident suggested that his injuries would have been less serious had he been wearing a helmet. Students asked why there was no law requiring that cyclists wear helmets.
The teacher decided to use the students’ interest in this issue as the basis of a social studies inquiry. The project involved students learning about the respective responsibilities of federal, state and local government, learning how an ordinance is prepared, learning the process by which an ordinance passes through local government, and researching the responses of other local governments to the issue of requiring that bicycle riders wear helmets. During their research, the students initiated correspondence with a variety of elected officials and police officers. They undertook a survey to gauge community opinion on the need for bike helmets and drafted an ordinance that they presented to their local council. The project resulted in a new ordinance being passed into law, based closely on the one the students drafted.
The project was completed over a period of about six months. It involved a combination of social studies class time and work outside class. The class worked as a whole group on the initial stages of planning and in preparation for the students’ presentation to the council. The research and drafting elements of the project were shared among groups of students to ensure maximum participation in the work and its product.
The written work produced as part of Applied Learning projects commonly contains some errors. Documentation of these projects includes notes, journal entries and plans that students produced as working documents for their personal use. These kinds of documents were not prepared with the expectation of eventual publication and they have not been revised for inclusion in this book.
It is expected that finished work produced as part of an Applied Learning project will contain virtually error free writing.
| This project illustrates a standard-setting
performance for the following part of the standards: |
|
 a |
Learning and Self-management: Learn from models. |
What the work shows
a
Learning and Self-management Tools and Techniques: The student learns
from models; that is, the student:
| • | consults with or observes other students and adults at work, and identifies the main features of what they do and the way they go about their work; |
| • | examines models for the results of project work, such as professionally produced publications, and analyzes their qualities; |
| • | uses what he or she learns from models to assist in planning and conducting project activities. |
When preparing
to write their own ordinance on bicycle helmets, the students found a
variety of models including models of ordinances passed by other city
councils and state governments.
The students analyzed a model ordinance (an ordinance on teen curfew)
by copying it on to an overhead transparency and going through it piece
by piece with the whole class. Two students led the discussion on the
various elements of the ordinance. The acronym “CAM” refers
to “Competent Adult Model,” the term used by the class to refer
to models that guide their work.
The notes on the ordinance itself show the degree of attention the students
paid to the layout, content, and formatting of the ordinance. For example,
the students noted that the summary was written in capitals and that each
of the subsequent paragraphs begins with “WHEREAS.”
The students used all of this information when writing their own ordinance.