The pupils worked in groups, taking an in-depth look at the school and its surroundings as well as at the route to school and road safety in general. In six teaching units, the children reflected on different types of safety on their way to school and learned how to make a map of the local area.
As practice, the children first explored the school playground with a list of questions and, back in the classroom, drew the playground from memory.
The focus then shifted to exploring the area surrounding the route to school. They "visited" each child at home and photographed them outside their front door. While doing so, they learned how to behave in traffic and practised crossing the road.
Back in the classroom, the children worked in groups to build LEGO models of the area around their route to school in cardboard boxes. The children who lived near one another were put in the same group. With the aid of perspex sheets, the 3-D models of the school surroundings were turned into 2-D models. In other words, the children created their first maps by placing the perspex sheet on the boxes and drawing what they could see. Terms such as map, bird's-eye view and key were introduced and explained.
With the knowledge they had acquired, each child drew a sketch of his/her own route to school. In groups, the children thought about dangerous and safe points along their way to school and presented these using the 3-D model and their own sketch.
The children were then shown a map of Quadrath-Ichendorf and, in small groups, asked to find the streets where they lived. The photos they had taken when walking the different school routes were attached at the relevant points. The overview was hung up in the classroom. The road safety project left a lasting impression on the pupils. After the project had been completed, pupils were still to be seen in front of the map of Quadrath-Ichendorf, eagerly discussing the safest way to get to where they had arranged to meet up in the afternoon.