Action Plan

ACTUAL ACTION.

a) Environmental Aspects

SMJA will agree to the proposal and carry out the School-Idle-free-Policy

All the transport group members sat together and discussed lengthly on what actions to carry out, the materials required and the time frame allocated to carry out this CPS project on transportation and every member came up with one proposal each to be carried out at our chosen secondary school. And for my part, I decided to propose a 'School idle free policy' to SM SMJA. The first that we will do is to obtain the letter of consent before we go to the school.

Next a proposal on the 'School idle free policy' to SM SMJA will be designed that contain all the information about idling and the harmful effects it has on our environment and the power point presentation is expected to be conducted on the day agreed by the principal. Following after designing the proposal, leaflets about the concerned topic will be prepared and to be distributed to the teachers. Both the power point presentation and the leaflets were presented to our supervisor for improvement and approval.

Upon the completion of the proposal, power point presentation and the leaflets, then a meeting will be held with the principal to discuss on our mission to that school and to agree on the actual day to carry out our proposal presentation. Prior to the actual presentation, interviews will be conducted for parents and the questionnaires will be distributed to parents and students to obtain information on transportation. It is hope that we will reach our objectives for the four proposal we decided to propose at this school.

EVALUATION ON THE ACTION TAKEN ON EVRIRONMENTAL ASPECT

The first action that we made after deciding on what topic to propose was designing our action plan individually. Then we moved o draft our letter of permission. Here in order to have the same sample of letter,the whole of my colleagues agreed to have the same format of the letter. But due to so many delay, we could not get the letter on time to be presented to the school we had chosen. After that I started to design the “school idle free policy”, which contain the definitions, objectives, problems and suggested solutions to overcome the problems of idling a school. It took me few days to complete designing the proposal. Next I started to prepare for the leaflets on the concerned topic to be distributed for the teachers.

When everything was ready, then my colleague and I made appointment to see the principal. On Wednesday, 10^th. March, 2010 at about 2 pm. The principal was not at school so we were attended by the deputy principal. We had brief discussion with him on our objectives and targets to our “school idle free policy” to that school. The deputy principal welcomed our proposal and assigned one teacher to help us and to be incharge during our proposal presentation later.

On Monday, 15^th. March, at about 2pm, I presented my proposal on “school idle free policy” to about 20 teachers. The presentation went well and there was sharing session towards the end presentation of my fourth colleague. Some teachers gave positive feedback and share their views on idling. I jot down all their feedback and views to be shared later with my colleagues.

Letters and Interviews

There were two actions that we could not carry out. The first one was that we could not obtain the letter of permission from UBD on time due to our delay in preparing the letter but luckily, the school’s deputy principal did not require a permission letter, instead happily attended to us and welcomed to help us with our proposal. And the second problem was that I could not carry out the interview with parents due to time constraint and parents were not willing to be interviewed. These were some of the limitations to the action plan that I had proposed.

2) Feedback on the Proposal:

a) Environmental Aspects (Proposal : The School to Propose a School idle free policy)

The teachers discussed among themselves about the topic that I had presented to them. Majority of them did not agree with the proposal of the “School idle free policy. The feedbacks from the teachers were that the first and important factor to consider before proposing the presentation was the weather issue. Assuming the weather is hot, as it is during midday, or during raining season, they would not just turn off their engine and just wait inside the car, feeling hot or uncomfortable. And they also said that they would be slim chances that this proposed policy would work if carry out as it did not sound favourable unless with the help and strict implementation from the government through our Ministry of Education and widely practiced through the nation.

3) What did the group learn from doing this project?

When we were first introduced to this course, I felt lost and had blurr vision what was it all about and I also felt demotivated as the workload seemed endless and kept topping up. But lucliky I had the best and strongest members of colleagues in my team and working with them gave me the opportunity to enjoy the team spirit through the hard times and learn all the beneficial things about doing CPS This was my first time working in a big school as SM SMJA, and I had learnt a lot from doing the CPS project, planning, implementing, presenting, collecting and analyzing data using SPSS as well as reporting our findings. The workload was unbearable due to the time constraint as we also had to attend to other courses, lectures and assignments. This course had given me valuable knowledge to be adapted and skills to be acquired when doing CPS, as well as the essence to be included and ways to solve problems that would arise. Lots of extra time was needed to finish this project and it taught us to wisely manage our time and dedication.

Learning from this course made me aware of the importance of our environment and together we should appreciate and conserve it for our future generation and EfSD should be implemented and taught from as early as at the kindergarten levels. It is good that now with the implementation of our new education system, SPN21, EfSD is incorporated in the syllabi for primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Thanks to our supervisor for educating us with such patience and determination. I would also like to thank my three team members for their patience, support, guidance and knowledge that manage me to go along well.

Finally, I hope that this project will be of great help and beneficial for future research or study on environment as well as for other fields that would help to reduce or stop air pollution and make the world a better and safe place to live in.

SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM.

A) Environmental Aspects

Stop idling – just park. Turn off your engine if you are waiting more than 10 seconds Idling is when a driver leaves the engines running and the vehicle parked. Vehicle idling is one of the biggest problems among today's drivers. What people often don't realize about idling is that it wastes money and natural resources, it can damage our vehicles, affect the environment, and harm our health. (http://www.hcdoes.org/airquality/anti-idling/idle.htm. Assessed on Wednesday, 14-03-2010, 11.13pm).

Five states in New England have anti-idling regulations: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. The Connecticut and Massachusetts regulations are part of the state implementation plan. State regulations that are part of the state implementation plan are federally enforceable. This means that EPA has the authority to enforce these laws as well as the State. EPA has taken enforcement action against several fleets in Connecticut and Massachusetts for alleged violations of the anti-idling regulations in those states. (http://134.67.99.207/Region1//eco/diesel/idling.html. Assessed on Wednesday, 14-03-2010, 11.23pm).

To make community stop idling need thorough regulations and strict enforcement made by the government and other stakeholders involved, like the Land and Transport Department and the Police department and it must be imposed nation wide to make sure the community and the society obey the rules and to educate them with the bad health effects idling had upon people, especially children, the elderly and people with health problems. We can start this simple regulations at school where many parents idle while waiting for their children after school. From the survey and questionnaire shows that......

Parents agree (mean 3.71) that the government should strictly imposed regulations / fine for those who are stubborn and do not care for the environment. This is hoped to reduce the pollution caused by transportation and to educate people to value life and also our environment. Another solution that the parents agree (mean 4.06) on is to place policemen at schools during peak hours, or the security as to help check on parents who still idle and ask them politely to turn off their car engine. This might be hard for parents at first but eventually they will get use to it. And finally, parents came to an agreement (mean 3.9) that school should provide an air pollution indicator. This will equip them with the knowledge of the pollution emission from transportation and of the dangers that will affect us, hence manage them to do something to help reduce the pollution.

The implication of the result

From the result obtained, it showed that parents and society were greatly concern and care about the dangers and harmful effects caused by idling and transportation, especially the dangers their children are facing at the moment. And in order to achieve the goal to reduce the bad consequences caused by the emission of the poisonous gases from idling, all parties, government, parents, community, and others are to be held responsible and to cooperate to achieve the goal.