Teaching road safety through numeracy

Information is provided below for teachers surrounding teaching road safety through the subject of numeracy.

Who is this information for?

This information is for Primary School teachers delivering numeracy teaching.  Additional support and resources are available free of charge.

How can it help?

Numeracy is all about the practical application of maths in everyday situations.  The road environment provides many opportunities to explore numbers and shapes, all of which help children to become more familiar with this environment.

Why should we include road safety in the curriculum work?

For teachers, this is an opportunity to meet two objectives at once, by easily combining development of numeracy skills with a broad awareness of road safety issues.

What do I need to do?

Listed below are some ideas for numeracy activities relating to road safety. Use the links on the right to explore material that can be ordered from the Road Safety Unit, free of charge.

How to contact us

To order or request any item contact us on (01902) 551155, or e-mail us on road.safety@wolverhampton.gov.uk

Activities

1. Count vehicles going along a road for a fixed number of minutes. Keep a tally of different vehicles and use it to create a table, graph or chart showing the different groups. Use this to make comparisons between the different groups and the total figure, eg 3/4 of all vehicles passing were cars.  Then use the total to estimate vehicles per hour or per minute, or express it as one vehicle every "x" minutes or seconds. Do his with more than one road, and then compare the results.  Which road do you think would be safer to cross, and why?
2. Think about a car going at 30mph. How far will it go in one second?
3. Now find out how many seconds it takes you to cross a road.
   From this can you work out how far away an approaching car has to be for you to be able to cross safely?
4. Ask your road safety officer for some simple child accident data.
   Again, display it as a table , graph, or chart. Find out which age group of children has the most pedestrian or cyclist accidents. By how much do different age groups vary? Why do you think this is?
5. Observe people crossing a busy road where there is a pedestrian crossing.  What fraction of them uses the crossing? Time how long it takes to cross, both for those using the crossing and for those not. Does it take more or less time to cross at the crossing? How many different shapes of road sign can you find? Why are different shapes used? Do they help you to know what the signs mean? Do you know of any signs that contain numbers? How much faster than 30mph is 40mph? How is this significant if you want to cross a 40mph road?
6. If your school has a parking restriction sign outside, look at the times for which the restriction is in force.
   For how long each day is parking prohibited? Why are these times chosen? How does a steep hill sign tell you the steepness or direction of slope of the hill? Why is this particularly important for cyclists?
7. Look at a set of different motor vehicles.
   Place them in order according to how fast they travel, putting the slowest first.  Make a note of the order, and then jumble them up.  Now put them in order of size, starting with the biggest.  Compare the two orders: is there a connection between size and speed?
8. Estimate how many times you travel to and from school in one year.
   Now think of some other places you travel to, and repeat the exercise. Which journey do you make most often? Are you sure you have chosen the safest route for this journey?