Advocacy isn’t only for adults! Bike Utah has an amazing youth bicycling education team that teaches at schools around the state. They recognize providing youth education on bicycle safety is only part of the solution to making bicycling more accessible and fun for youths. Therefore the Student Street Design Challenge was created to engage 4th through 7th grade students in bicycle navigation skills and advocacy!

• Student street design challenge

• Activity 1: Map my neighborhood

• Activity 2: Safe streets observation list

• Activity 3: My ideal neighborhood

• Activity 4: How to write a letter to your city planner

• Student resources

Have ideas or feedback on how to get youth more involved in bicycle advocacy? Send us a message at youth@bikeutah.org. And if you’re interesting in learning more of the basics on bicycle advocacy, we recommend you check out the New to Bicycle Advocacy section!

What it is: The Student Street Design Challenge is a collection of hands-on activities to get students to tap into their creative side.

Students will examine the streets in their neighborhoods to formulate inspiration and insights toward their ideal design for safer streets. The following four activities can be completed independently, but are intended to build on each other to help students form a confident voice, with deeper understanding and ideas, for shaping their communities. You can download the complete digital document below!

Alternate Mapping: Another way to map out your neighborhood is to let Google Maps do it! You can practice course design and ride route planning through the Google Maps mobile app or desktop platform. To do so, open the program and enter in a destination. Google Maps will first provide directions as if you were traveling by car. But if you switch to bicycle mode, Google Maps will give you the bicycle-friendly directions on how to arrive to your destination! Below are instructions from Google and an example bicycle route from Bike Utah’s office to the state capitol.

Roads and streets are designed to help us move safely from one point to another; from home to school or from work to the park. Cars, buses, vehicles, pedestrians, and people on bikes are all sharing these spaces. We’re looking for your ideas on changes or improvements to the roads, streets, and trails so that every person feels safe while riding.

SUb-Activity A:

Instructions: If you created a neighborhood map, you may want to refer to it for this activity. Otherwise sit in a safe place to examine the street in front of your home or close your eyes and recall your neighborhood from memory!

When you are riding your bicycle, what are things that you see that are keeping you safe? What about things that you can’t see that are also keeping you safe on the road? Make a list of these items.

What from that list are items you think need to be there to keep people on bicycles safe?

Sub-Activity B:

Instructions: Another way to describe your bicycle experience is to break it down by what you hear, see, think or feel, and do. Use the chart below to list out words or phrases that come to mind when riding your bicycle on streets in your neighborhood!

When I ride my bicycle…

Sub-Activity C:

Instructions: Maybe you feel like expressing your bicycling experience in a different way…! If you want to write a song, we look forward to reading those words! Want to shoot a video? We’ll get the popcorn ready! Feel like drawing or even building a model? Please share your ideas with us by emailing at Youth@BikeUtah.org.

Now that you’ve explored the streets of your neighborhood and brainstormed ideas to make streets safer, your next project is to design a mini-street network.

If you were to design a street for cars, buses, pedestrians, and people on bikes, what would it look like to keep every person safe and look amazing? How can we get from one place to another while staying safe and having fun?

Here are some items below that you may want to consider in your street design. Add more items that are important for your neighborhood, we’re eager to see what you design!

• Stop Signs

• Intersections

• Turtle Crossing Signs

• Oneway Streets

• Bike Lanes

• Bridges

Instructions: Use a blank piece of paper to draw your mini-street network. Or, ask permission to use a safe area to make your design come to life, such as a basketball court or driveway. Use any material you can get your hands on to make streets and stop signs. Get creative! Create signs to let your neighborhood and other road users know what’s going on. If your neighbors pass by, ask them to try your mini-street network!

Sharing your experience as a youth and community member is incredibly important in shaping what streets, trails, and neighborhoods look like. Who should you send the letter to? Discuss with your teacher or family who to send this letter to. It might be different for every student because we all live in different places. Some cities have city planners and transportation departments that would love to know what you think. Sometimes, in smaller cities and towns, the mayor or city council are the best options. Try searching for the following positions on your local city government website: Planning, Engineering, City Administrator/Manager, City Council or Mayor. If you are unsure who to contact in your area, email the Bike Utah staff at youth@bikeutah.org. We’d love to see these letters and emails too!

Instructions: Use the template below, or create your own to compose a letter or email to a planner that lets them know what you want and need in your neighborhood. Ask your teacher or a family member to help identify how to send your letter and to whom.