Help These Students Teach Their Peers to Just Drive!

SGHS Drives Without Distractions!

Submitted by SGHS FCCLA

In December, Ste. Genevieve FCCLA applied for a $200 NOYS mini-grant to start a traffic safety project.  In late February, we were notified that our project was one of the 20 finalists and we were receiving an additional $1,000 to continue our work. The students wanted to have a fun way to remind their peers to reduce distracted driving, beginning with t-shirts and seatbelt buckle belts.

From there, we built a project that included visits to the third grade classes from Vince & Larry, the crash test dummies. Vince & Larry asked third graders what things they could do to help reduce distractions in a vehicle and also asked the children to write letters to the high school students to help them understand how important it is for them to drive safely.

Working with the media class, we sponsored a video contest to create a video that to demonstrate methods of reducing distracted driving. After screening out those violating copyright laws, we had 11 semi-finalist videos. A committee narrowed this to seven videos that were placed on the school website for viewing and online voting.

Just Drive! If you walked the halls of Ste. Genevieve High School during our traffic safety week this is all you would see and hear.  We conducted a preliminary seatbelt check and students who were buckled up coming to school received a prize ticket. Each prize ticket was turned in for a lanyard reading "Just Drive". We used the tickets later in the week to draw for attendance prizes at our assembly.

Finally, we held a school wide assembly where additional t-shirts were launched to the audience (a big hit!) and tickets were drawn for the additional shirts and seatbelt buckle belts. Some winners of these prizes competed in the tricycle challenge. The participants all raced from one end of the gym to another on tricycles--one while eating a sandwich, one while drinking a bottle of water, one while texting, one while wearing drunk goggles (from the local police dept.) and another without any distractions. The driver with no distractions was the winner.

Also at the assembly, we showed the top three winning videos and awarded giant checks to the winners.  The winner of the contest received 100 dollars. A sheriff also came and talked to the juniors and seniors during this time about traffic safety. The sheriff also brought a seatbelt convincer which showed the students the impact of a 5mph crash. Overall this experience really convinced a lot of people to drive without distractions.

SGHS Students Need Your Vote!

 

Through May 21, online voting is taking place at www.actoutloud.org to determine which of the 20 project finalists will receive $10,000 from the Allstate Foundation.  SGHS needs you to help them make it to the very top!  You can vote daily, once per email address.  Good luck Ste. Genevieve High School!