AVID Class Wins Seat Belt Challenge.
Avid Teacher Aimee Witulski helps TJ students celebrate victory. photos by Jasmine Kabera
In Aimee Witulski’s AVID class one will always find students working on their own individual projects in preparation for college, but three weeks ago the students were collaborating on the their very first seat belt challenge.
“The seat belt challenge was a challenge amongst area high schools to increase seat belt usage in teen drivers and passengers,” said Witulski. “And part of AVID is community involvement and volunteering. It was also a good activity for us to do as a class and learn to work together.”
The students got right to work, coming up with creative ways to encourage our teen drivers to buckle up. The three week competition consisted of education week, enforcement week, and encouragement week.
The different AVID groups started out by writing “buckle up” with caution tape on the fence, making chalk out-lines of 43 teens who died in car accidents nationally last year, made seat belts for classroom doors, put up fliers in the bathrooms and cars, and even sat buckled into mobile car seats during class.
“This was our first year doing it [the seat belt challenge] and this was the first time they had a ‘first-time school’ win the challenge,” said a proud Witulski. “We won we won an all school cupcake party. Everyone in school gets a cupcake.”
Cupcakes weren’t the only prizes handed out; Junior Joanna Carrillo won an i-Pod Nano through a raffle involving all the AVID classes. All prizes aside, Carrillo said that the experience really helped her discover the importance of buckling up. “Watching the video about all the teen driving accidents made me cry,” said Carrillo. “Seeing what happened when they weren’t wearing seat belts impacted me the most and made me think.”
