iBuckleUp weBuckleUp Seat Belt Safety: A Mini-Grant Story
Ms. Schneider is a middle school teacher from Indiana with a heart for helping her students learn through service. "Service and philanthropy are life skills that are needed not matter what field of work a person chooses," she said. "When teaching service and philanthropy, students learn about themselves by helping others."
After employing the Learning to Give lesson Healthy Youth, Healthy Community and with help from a mini-grant, Ms. Schneider's students developed a project coined iBuckleUp weBuckleUp Seat Belt Safety to impact over 500 of their peers.
Students researched seat belt statistics and surveyed the student body. Using what they learned, they created a campaign to stress the importance of wearing seat belts. Students created a video with stories of tragic accidents to help remind students they should wear seat belts all the time. In addition, the students also visited the local county commissioners to name February 2018 Seat Belt Safety Month for the county. They showed their persuasive video during a whole school assembly.
"I was amazed when I read the statistics of not wearing a seat belt," one student reflected. Another said, "The county meeting was interesting but also long and boring. I know I don't want to be in politics." Still another said, "Planning the assembly has been a lot of hard work. The students in our school have no idea how much time we have spent on the video and activities."
Through this project, students learned about the importance of research and advocating for a cause.