Sustainability action process -...
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Sustainability action process Transport use and efficiency Student learning journal This learning journal will help guide you an investigation into transport in your school and community, sustainable transport issues and solutions and importantly how we communicate these issues and solutions to people. The five-step Sustainability action process will help you producing a creative and practical proposal to change people’s transport related behaviours and support you to create an infographic to communicate information, or your sustainable transport solution. Using the transport learning journal (Microsoft Word) This transport learning journal is your record of the work you or your group does. Each of the five Sustainability action process headings has sections with some questions to answer and has space to document you thinking and work. As a Microsoft Word document you can add any text, images and pictures to it, tables and graphs for your data, add any links to Internet resources or information or even add links to video or audio interview you have recorded. You may want to reword a question or add other questions or headings. Record your answers to these questions in the space provided, add new pages for photos, illustrations and diagrams. Student names ................................................................... .................................... ......................................................................... ....................................................... © State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013 Page | 1
Transcript of Sustainability action process -...
Sustainability action processTransport use and efficiency Student learning journal
This learning journal will help guide you an investigation into transport in your school and community, sustainable transport issues and solutions and importantly how we communicate these issues and solutions to people.
The five-step Sustainability action process will help you producing a creative and practical proposal to change people’s transport related behaviours and support you to create an infographic to communicate information, or your sustainable transport solution.
Using the transport learning journal (Microsoft Word)
This transport learning journal is your record of the work you or your group does. Each of the five Sustainability action process headings has sections with some questions to answer and has space to document you thinking and work.
As a Microsoft Word document you can add any text, images and pictures to it, tables and graphs for your data, add any links to Internet resources or information or even add links to video or audio interview you have recorded.
You may want to reword a question or add other questions or headings. Record your answers to these questions in the space provided, add new pages for photos, illustrations and diagrams.
Student names .......................................................................................................
................................................................................................................................
Team name ................................................................ Class ..................................
Teacher (contact person) ......................................................................................
School ....................................................................................................................
© State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013
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Making the case for change
Transporting people and goods are an essential part of our lives. Transport has an impact on climate change, resource use through the fuels vehicles use, the environment through drilling for oil and increased congestion in our cities. Increased understanding, new technology and better infrastructure can change people’s transport related behaviours and reduce the environmental impact of transport. Communication tools including an infographic can assist.
Exploring transport
What is transport and why is it important for me and my community? What transport systems are in our local community? What can we learn from looking at the history of, and developments in transport –
infrastructure, car design and fuels? What do I know about making transport use more sustainable?
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© State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013
Making the case for change
Assessing your current situation
Before deciding any change to be made at school an audit of transport use by people in your school is a great place to start. Other investigations may be needed to find out about such things as people's habits or activities that use transport.
What types of transport are available in my community to get to and from school? How do people at my school use different types of transport? Can I measure and describe the level of usage of different forms of transport? What are the environmental issues related to transport?
© State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013
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Making the case for change
Investigating concepts of sustainable transport
It is important to keep in mind transport is integral to our modern lives. Not only is it used to move people, it also plays an important role in supplying goods and services. To make a case for change at school, it is important to investigate the environmental and financial costs of transport as well as other types of transport used.
What further investigations do I need to undertake to learn more about the transport systems around the world? What did I find out?
What innovations are being made in areas of transport systems, vehicle design and new fuel options?
What are the health benefits of active transport options including riding and walking? What are the other issues or barriers that restrict more students walking or riding to
school? e.g. parental concerns, time, carrying heavy school bags, distance?
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© State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013
Making the case for change
Stating the case for what needs to change and why
On this page state some of your reasons for changing some aspect of transport use at school. At this stage you should investigate the issues and avoid thinking about solutions, e.g. actions or specific changes. Focus on areas or activities that use a type of transport and that could be changed.
What do we think needs to change in our school about how we use transport and why? Are these changes behavioural, organisational or infrastructure related? Who do we need to talk to and why? Do we need to learn more?
© State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013
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Making the case for change
Communicating your transport solution
Providing information to people involved will be an important step. Your team will develop an infographic on a sustainable transport issue, solution or the sequence to implement it.
What is an infographic?
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© State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013
Defining the scope for action
Generating ideas and exploring options for action
Once you have identified a change that needs to be made, there can be a number of different ideas and options for actions that might produce the change.
What are the sustainability advantages or disadvantages of the different types of transport used in the community?
How do we compare to other schools and communities in our transport use? What types of action have they taken and do we want to take? How will we know if the changes we make have been successful?
© State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013
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Defining the scope for action
Resources and constraints
Before further developing ideas about sustainable transport it is important to know what resources are available. It is also important to identify ‘constraints’ that might limit the ability to implement an idea or may reduce its potential success.
Who might be available to help us? What time and finances are available for the project? What might limit our actions?
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© State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013
Defining the scope for action
Selecting ideas for action
Now you have identified a range of actions you will need to go through a process to select the best option. You need to consider your school’s context and provide evidence that a particular idea is the optimum one. Some tools decision making tools may assist you.
What are the different ways we could make improvements? How have others made improvements in this area? Can we? Can we develop an infographic to communicate our action? How can we come up with a great idea? What will we do?
© State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013
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Developing the proposal for action
A proposal for increasing active transport and reducing transport related energy use requires a clear statement of action, criteria for success and agreement by stakeholders .Developing the statement (brief) for action.
In this section you will be refining the direction you have chosen through a project brief. You will need to develop some specific actions, responsibilities and expectations for your project.
A ‘brief’ is a document that describes a plan, process or approach and should include a way to measure or rate how well it succeeded. As an introduction your brief should include both broad aims as well as some detailed reasoning.
You may need to provide some evidence for your answers.
What type of sustainable transport action have we planned? How will we judge the success of our improvements? What are the individual steps required. What budget or resources are required for each step? Who will be responsible for these actions? What could we do if things don’t go to plan?
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© State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013
Developing the proposal for action
Preparing to communicate the proposal
You have generated an idea for an action that will change an aspect of transport use in your school. To gain support for your idea it is important to communicate this to stakeholders. Different methods can be used to develop your infographic including drawing and graphic design software Microsoft PowerPoint presentation etc.
Who do we need to share our plan with? What will the changes cost or involve? Who will take the actions? How will we use feedback to improve our proposal?
© State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013
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Developing the proposal for action
Gaining agreement for the proposal
Before you finalise your proposal it will be important to consult with the Principal and others and respond to any suggestions that are made.
Has our class and have others in the school agreed to our ideas? What comments did the Principal make in relation to your infographic? What modifications have been made to gain the endorsement of the Principal? Do we need to update the infographic?
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© State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013
Developing the proposal for action
Proposal description
This is the final plan and should include all of the necessary information to proceed and make it happen.
Does our document include:o A plan for action?o The infographico The budget, personnel and timing requirements? o The steps we will follow to implement our plan?o The criteria and how we will record information to judge how successful we have been?
What we will do if the implementation does not go to plan or schedule?
© State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013
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Implementing the Proposal
To put a proposal into action you need to follow the sequential steps, monitor your progress and collect data to help measure your success.
Putting the proposal into action
As we implement our proposal we need to follow our project plan. We may also identify issues with the project and discuss solutions. Record them below.
Are we following the steps set out in the proposal? Are we keeping the purpose for the action clearly in mind? How will we know we are implementing the plan as it was agreed or intended?
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© State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013
Implementing the proposal
Monitoring and recording the implementation
The progress of the project needs to be monitored and documented. The collection and organisation of information at this stage assists with evaluating our project success. Add some journal entries and photos.
Are we collecting the information for the evaluation? How effective was our infographic at informing and engaging others?
© State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013
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Reflecting and Evaluating
You need to be able to judge and measure the success of your proposal in addressing the original issue and achieving your goal.
Evaluating the sustainability action
This step will describe the success of our initial idea, our planning and actions using our special criteria.
Did we achieve our goal of producing an effective infographic? Did we achieve our goal of improving the sustainability of transport in our school? Have we measured and described this? What could we have done differently to get a better result? What were the strengths and weaknesses of our plan? Does our action provide sustainable transport options for others? How can we communicate our success and engage others to try our idea?
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© State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013
Reflecting and Evaluating
Reflecting on the learning
It is important to reflect on and consider our individual learning and development as a group.
How has my/our feelings and behaviour changed as a result of my/our learning? How well did I/we participate to any group learning activities? Thinking back on what you have achieved, what was the most enjoyable part of the
project? How can I apply what I’ve learnt to another sustainability issue?
© State of New South Wales through the NSW Department of Education and Communities, 2013
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