The Clean Transportation Path

The Clean Transportation Path endeavors to provide high school students with the knowledge of clean transportation, to benefit the planet and themselves.

Green Driving America Inc. is implementing The Clean Transportation Path© project, featuring presentations in the classroom to high school educators, including: STEM, driver education, and Career and Technical Education (CTE) classes. Presentation details below.

NOTE: The former project name, Green Driving from the Start©, is now offered as an optional presentation within The Clean Transportation Path project: presentation details here.

With today's blend of vehicles, those dominated by the internal combustion engine (ICE) and now the emergence of vehicles powered by electricity, green driving basically means two things:

• What we drive: cleaner vehicles such as plug-in hybrid electrics (PHEVs), or all-electrics (EVs)

• How we drive: smart driving practices such as accelerating and braking smoothly, watching speed, and avoiding unnecessary idling

Smart driving practices are admirable in achieving reductions in emissions and pollution, and increases in fuel economy. But this alone is not the solution. In the U.S., the largest share of GHG emissions comes from transportation. ICE vehicles, which have been on the road since the 1800s, are putting us nearer to a precipice:

• CO2 emitted into the atmosphere that is seriously impacting our climate

• Fossil fuel use, from extraction to emissions

• Air quality / health impacts of tailpipe toxins

Now, for humans and for the planet, it is time to accelerate the transition to clean vehicles.

HOW A DIFFERENCE CAN BE MADE: The Clean Transportation Path (TCTP) presentations focus on the cost savings / CO2 emissions and fossil fuel use reductions / improved air quality benefits of plug-in vehicles (PHEVs and EVs):

• How they operate and differ from traditional gas vehicles

• How their maintenance/repair costs are typically one-half of gas vehicles

• The impact of gas vehicles being 1/5th efficient vs all-electric vehicles being 4/5ths efficient

• Details on plug-in vehicle charging and a state’s growing charging station infrastructure

• Purchase/lease incentives of new and used versions of these vehicles

• How they perform in cold weather

Our presentations also touch on alternatives to driving, including public transportation, bicycling, walking, and ride sharing/car pooling.

THE CLEAN TRANSPORTATION PATH© PRESENTATION DETAILS

For the 2022-23 school year, Green Driving America (GDA) is offering guest-speaking virtual presentations (such as with Zoom)1 in high school environmental science, science, math, STEM, driver education, and Career and Technical Education (CTE) classes. They are conducted by one of our trained college level interns; these interns are volunteers but are paid a stipend. These presentations are at no cost in funded areas including all of Vermont and the Upper Valley of New Hampshire, thanks to GDA grant awards from the Vermont Council on Rural Development's Climate Catalysts Innovation Fund, and an anonymous foundation in the Upper Valley of VT and NH. GDA will pursue funding to offer these presentations in other parts of NH, as well as for other New England states, New York, and Oregon.

Presentations are 45 minutes2 to an hour or more, depending on time flexibility. They include:

• PowerPoint with four videos (see below)3

• Student PDF handout covering presentation content and more - customized for each state (Vermont shown in this example)

• Engagement: intern presenter asks audience several questions during the slide show; if additional time, Q and A / discussion session follows (intern provided with knowledge of electrification beyond presentation content)

• Optional Quick Quiz: five-minute, nine question, mostly multiple choice; answers revealed in a PowerPoint slide

• Q & A and/or a group discussion can fill any remaining time.

The PowerPoint is customized for each state, for example showing a state's EV charging station locations, and available EV incentives/rebates/credits.

The preeminent source of electrification advocacy and information in Vermont—Drive Electric Vermont—has endorsed The Clean Transportation Path presentation for the state:

"Drive Electric Vermont endorses The Clean Transportation Path presentations Green Driving America is giving in Vermont high school driver education and STEM classes. The benefits of electric vehicles (EVs) to future drivers of Vermont are clearly described in the presentation, along with important information on incentives and additional cost savings associated with EVs. Vermont has ambitious goals to reduce transportation emissions – achieving them will require many new drivers to consider EV options in the years to come!"

1Optionally, educators can utilize students from their host school, who would be comfortable in public speaking, to give in-person presentations. They would be trained by the educator and/or virtually by the GDA executive director (educator may attend such a session). Host school student presenters would be in a voluntary, unpaid role.

2Truncated 30-minute presentations also available

3Educators given a virtual prescreening upon request

Educators having a possible interest in incorporating our classroom sessions into their curricula,

please contact Wayne Michaud by email: info@greendrivingamerica.org or by phone/text:

New England and New York: 802-267-4442; Oregon: 916-209-0224

OUR EXPERIENCE IN THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY

GDA evolved from an organization also run by executive director, Wayne Michaud, that was founded in Vermont: Idle-Free VT, that specialized in conducting educational projects in the school community. The organization was awarded grants to implement these projects starting in 2013. They were split into two efforts:

1. measured idle-free schools campaigns at 13 schools (11 in Vermont; two in California) from 2014-2016

2. a predecessor of the presentations we are giving today. More than 120 of these guest-speaking presentations were conducted in driver education and science/math educator classes from 2013-2016.

In 2021, GDA began implementing the Green Driving from the Start (GDFTS) project, offering presentations in driver education and driving school classes. These presentations covered both smart driving practice tips in an ICE vehicle (to reduce CO2 emissions and fuel costs), and an introduction to low- to zero-emission vehicles. In July, 2022, the GDFTS project name was changed to The Clean Transportation Path (TCTP). This allowed the project to be primarily focused on low- to zero-emission vehicle education, though GDFTS presentations are still available as an option. At this time, we began offering our presentations, additionally, in high school STEM classes.

Presentation PowerPoint, Videos, Student Handout

THE CLEAN TRANSPORTATION PATH TEACHER ACCOLADES & PRESENTATIONS TIMELINE 2021-2022-2023

FOR INTERESTED EDUCATORS: Below is a YouTube video of images (advancing in 12 seconds each), not narrated, from the full animated The Clean Transportation Path PowerPoint slide presentation shown in the classroom; the presenter provides elaboration on the slides. NOTE: this is the PowerPoint for Vermont; it is customized for each state.

Also shown are YouTube videos of the four videos included in the presentation.

NOTE: The Clean Transportation Path© presentation is the property of Green Driving America Inc. It may not be used or recorded without permission. The other videos below are open source and may be freely used.

Gasoline, Gasoline, the World's Aflame is another video that educators may be interested in showing beyond the time allotted in presentations.

THE CLEAN TRANSPORTATION PATH STUDENT HANDOUT

(customized for each state; Vermont shown)

WHAT WILL THE DIFFERENCE BE?: GDA sees the vitally important reasons why new and future drivers need to embrace the electrification of transportation. Chief among these is that many states are confronted with their highest percentage of GHG emissions coming from transportation, as well as tailpipe toxins from gas vehicles that can impact our health. And that, to address this issue, some of these states, including those in New England, New York, Oregon, and California, have very robust goals to increase electric vehicle registrations by 2030. The Clean Transportation Path educational sessions will make a difference as a percentage of students will grasp and apply the compelling information shown. They (and by extension, some of the adults around them) will learn to be more environmentally responsible drivers as well as being shown the path to EVs. Over the coming years, each student who makes the choice not to drive an ICE vehicle, will avoid the consumption of many hundreds to thousands of gallons of fuel, resulting in reductions of many tons of CO2 emissions.