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Scott Foresman Reading Street 5.6.1
Genre Comprehension
Nonfi ction • Draw Conclusions
ISBN-13: ISBN-10:
978-0-328-52541-6 0-328-52541-3
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Word count: 2,522
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not included.
By Becky Cheston
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Chapter 1 ....................................6 What Drove Us to
Drive?
Chapter 2 ..................................10 Hike It or Bike
It
Chapter 3 ..................................17 One Good Change
Leads to Another
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Introduction When was the last time you walked or rode
a bike to school? Most likely your answer is, not recently. The
fact is, if you take a bus or are driven to school instead, you
aren’t alone. One recent study discovered that in 2004, 87 percent
of kids in the United States took a bus or were driven to school.
That means that only 13 percent of kids walked or biked to school!
That number represents a remarkable decrease from just five years
before when those walking or biking numbered more than 50
percent.
These decades of increased motoring have alarmed experts. Not only
has the dependence on motor vehicles been awful for kids’ physical
health, it’s been bad for our planet, as well. Now, however, at
schools across the country, people are starting to see signs of
change. Communities are finding value in people using their own
power to get to their destinations, and the numbers of those doing
so are already increasing.
5
What is driving this change? The cost of fuel is one factor. With
fuel prices often high, many school districts have cut back on
providing buses to transport students. In many towns, parents are
also rethinking their need to drive their kids to school.
Additionally, people are also reconsidering how they design
communities in order to make them more compact and walkable. This
requires thoughtful planning and building to develop towns and
neighborhoods with sidewalks, bike lanes, and short distances
between homes and schools, stores, parks and public
transportation.
At the same time, it’s not easy for us to change all the routines
that we’ve formed over years. It’s difficult to give up driving
everywhere when we’ve been doing it our whole lives. So how did we
get this way? What are the effects of our actions? What can be
done? Let’s find out.
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Chapter 1
What Drove Us to Drive? Urban sprawl has become a fact of life
across
much of the United States. Urban or suburban sprawl describes the
way in which cities and towns have expanded farther and farther
from their centers into their surrounding areas. We see it in the
many new houses that are built in areas that were once farms,
forests, or fields.
In part, it all began, say the experts, because of Americans’
pursuit of “The American Dream.” Amongst many things, this dream
includes the hope of owning a home and yard of one’s own. As a
result, suburbs have grown and grown since the end of World War II
as people moved out of cities in pursuit of homes and
backyards.
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But urban sprawl has caused problems. People now live farther from
schools, shopping, and jobs. As a result, passenger vehicles are
vital, and many, if not most, families have more than one.
Roads have become clogged with cars taking people to and from their
daily activities. As a result, people spend more time on the road.
The high volume of traffic has led to worsening air
pollution.
As suburbs creep farther outward, farms and forests, which are
animal and plant habitats, are threatened or destroyed. When they
lose their habitats, animals lose their homes, birds lose their
roosts, and entire ecosystems are lost.
The rural way of life is quickly disappearing. Noise pollution has
increased with the high-pitched sounds of drills and jackhammers
from new construction. And all of these factors have created a
decrease in water quality.
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Residents in these new types of communities often report that they
feel isolated. They find that there are fewer “built-in”
opportunities to get to know their neighbors and to socialize with
them in a variety of activities. It turns out that there are fewer
chances to build what many call “a sense of community.”
Halting the spread of suburbs seems like a huge task, but unplanned
realities, such as high gas prices and global warming, are forcing
us to “think outside the box.” Already, planners at city, state,
and national levels are thinking about how to stop urban
sprawl.
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Farsighted planners of communities want to combat urban sprawl with
something they call “smart growth.” In their vision, the ideal
community has a town center with groups of varied neighborhoods
surrounding it. Shops, businesses, schools, and hospitals are close
by, ideally within walking distance, but there is also an open
space for parks, jogging paths, and nature preserves. Getting to
most places will be easier because people can walk or take public
transportation.
In the meantime, many people are working in small ways to change
how Americans get from place to place. Some of the most interesting
ideas are coming from kids who are focusing on how they get to and
from school. Read about how kids like you are making a difference
in their communities.
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By walking to and from school, these students may win the Golden
Sneaker Award.
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Hike It or Bike It Win the Golden Sneaker!
Students at Hall Middle School in Larkspur, California, knew the
deal: Getting many of their peers to move their feet was going to
take some serious motivation. That’s when they got creative.
Tapping into the competitive spirit of students everywhere, they
invented a mileage contest with a class prize called the Golden
Sneaker Award.
Making the trophy was the easy part. All it took was a high-top
sneaker, some gold spray paint, and a wooden pedestal to display
the shoe on. Then, they developed contest rules that would inspire
kids to “Go for the Gold.”
Students entered the contest by keeping track of how often they
walked or biked to school, counting their total mileage and
entering their totals into a classroom record. The contest rules
even took into account the fact that some kids realistically lived
too far away to walk or bike to school. Those students were allowed
to collect walking
11
and biking miles on weekends. Each month, the class with the most
total mileage wins the Golden Sneaker—and, usually, a
celebration.
The Golden Sneaker Award is getting more kids to power themselves
to school. It’s also prompting nearby communities to come up with
similar contests. Called “Frequent Walker/Rider Miles,” these
activities get kids to collect mileage points from walking, biking,
or carpooling. When they reach certain totals, kids can redeem
their points for prizes.
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Take the Walking School Bus Fourth-grader Nia used to ride the
school bus.
Recently, however, when the Columbia, Missouri, schools needed to
cut their transportation costs, Nia’s route was eliminated. Now,
she and her friends walk the half-mile to school via a “walking
school bus” – an idea that’s spreading across the country.
Here’s how it works: Each morning and afternoon, a few adults take
turns escorting a group of neighborhood kids on an organized walk.
Like school buses, these daily trips each have their own “routes.”
The “bus” originates at one home and then picks up other kids and
adult supervisors at “stops” along the way.
So far, Nia loves her new school commute. Not only is the route
shorter than the bus she used to take, Nia finds that the walk
helps her start her day with more energy. “I like it because I get
to sleep late, and I don’t get as grouchy,” she told Newsweek
magazine.
All Aboard the Bike Train Sometimes, change occurs in stages. In
Duluth,
Georgia, students and teachers at the Mason Elementary School
weren’t sure about expanding their monthly Walk to School Day to
include bicycles. While discussing the idea, someone reminded the
group that only one student at Mason had ever been seen riding a
bike to school. They decided to kick off the year by renaming their
monthly event “Walk and Roll to School Day.” This time, it would
include something called a “Bike Train.”
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No one expected more than one or two students to show up and pedal.
Imagine how surprised everyone was when 45 kids showed up that
first morning, helmets on their heads, ready to roll!
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Like Walking School Buses, Bike Trains help reduce peoples’
reliance on gas-powered vehicles. Here’s how the Bike Train works
at Mason Elementary School: Adults from a local cycling group join
bike-riding parents to escort the students. Each one wears a
neon-green reflective vest.
The train has two starting “stations.” When each group reaches the
main road, they merge into one large train. One adult “engineer”
leads the train, with another at the end acting as the “caboose.”
Other adults mix in with the train so that there is usually one
grown-up for every four kids.
The experience of the Mason School Bike Train shows that groups can
lead by example. Families who see the bike train riding to school
have taken notice. Perhaps, Bike Train members hope, they’ll be
coming aboard soon.
15
A Protest Is Afoot In Gadsden, Alabama, many juniors and
seniors
drove their own cars or were driven by their parents to Glencoe
High School. When gas hit $4.00 a gallon in 2008, they knew
something had to change. On Earth Day in 2008, students not only
talked about how the use of fossil fuels impacts the Earth and
peoples’ wallets, but also about how it impacts the wallets of the
oil companies.
Two days later, 40 Glencoe students decided to take a stand against
high gas prices. How did they protest? They simply stopped driving
to school. Instead, they met in a group and rode their bikes. What
did kids say about this experience?
For some kids, biking to school involved extra time. “I left my
house at 6:45 a.m. this morning and got to school at 7:15. I was
just in time,” J.P. Watson told The Gadsden Times.
While some parents initially had concerns about students crossing
traffic intersections, most liked the idea. And the headlines
describing the group of 40 kids had a “snowball effect,”
encouraging even more people, including teachers, to join their
ranks. As student T.J. Johnson told the Times, “We just want them
to ride bikes, carpool, anything to reduce gas.”
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These high school students choose to walk to school to do their
part to save the environment and also to improve their
health.
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As it turned out, the “snowball effect” rolled across the state.
One month later, about 50 students at Brooks High in Florence,
Alabama, decided to see if their actions could change gas prices.
Their goal was to get the entire student body to walk to school.
They would start the process themselves and pick up numbers as the
days went on.
Their determination amazed the adults in the community as the high
school students met together and mapped out several routes. Not
only did they take into account the fact that some students would
have to hike long distances to get to school, they also considered
the fact that some would have to travel along a major route which
had no sidewalks. With police overseeing their safety, the student
walking routes were a success.
17
One Good Change Leads to Another
Walking school buses, bike trains, frequent mileage awards, gas
protests, and better city planning are just a few ways that
communities are reducing their dependence on fossil fuels. As this
movement spreads, these small actions will contribute to bigger
changes in our own health and the health of our planet.
Improving Our Health Several research studies have shown that
regular
exercise is essential for good health and that kids should get at
least one hour of exercise each day. Students who walk or bike to
school already have a jump-start on meeting this goal. And, as
anyone who exercises regularly, they will see many benefits.
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Mental Benefits
Science Says . . .
Physical activity and exercise provide
Over time, activity makes your heart grow in size. This allows it
to pump more blood with each beat, delivering greater oxygen to
cells throughout your body.
Activity improves how the cells in your body get energy. Inside
each cell, oxygen and fuel molecules combine to make something
called ATP. This is a chemical that helps people’s muscles work
harder and longer without getting tired.
Activity builds lean muscle, making it a larger part of your body
mass. This increases your metabolism because muscle tissue burns
more calories than fat tissue does.
Activity prompts your brain to produce endorphins, better known as
your body’s “feel- good” chemicals.
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Helping Our Planet There are powerful benefits to reducing
the
numbers of cars and buses used to transport students to school.
First of all, the use of fewer vehicles means less consumption of
fossil fuels. Scientists are concerned about burning fossil fuels
because this process releases carbon dioxide (CO2) into our
atmosphere.
Earth’s temperature depends on balancing the energy that comes from
the Sun with the energy that bounces back into space. Releasing CO2
into the air is harmful because it traps heat that normally would
drift off into space. Some of this trapped energy is returned to
Earth, causing the imbalance that can result in global
warming.
Global warming is causing many problems, from bizarre weather
patterns to melting polar ice caps. Some of its major effects
are:
The ozone layer in our atmosphere protects all life from the
harmful effects of ultraviolet (UV) rays. Global warming has
created holes in the ozone layer, allowing UV rays in. These rays
cause skin damage and eye problems in people. They are also harmful
to other forms of life.
21
The polar ice caps have shrunk to record lows. In the Antarctic,
glaciers are melting at a rate. Scientists predict that if we don’t
severely reduce CO2 emissions, nearly 90 percent of the Arctic
permafrost could melt by 2100. Wildlife there would become extinct.
And about 400 billion tons of methane gas—now trapped in the frozen
soil—would be released. This would speed up global warming even
more.
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Melting ice causes rising sea levels. This could cause worldwide
coastal flooding, forcing people and animals inland. Rising sea
levels could also affect annual rainfall patterns. These climate
changes could force Earth’s temperature to rise even more.
As the temperatures of the oceans rise, so, too, will the
likelihood of more frequent and stronger hurricanes. Additionally,
some areas of Earth will become wetter due to global warming while
others will suffer from more severe droughts and heatwaves.
While scientists and world leaders are still studying ways to
reduce global warming on a grand scale, each one of us can change
some of our habits. Think about this: For every gallon of gasoline
burned, about 20 pounds of CO2 enter the atmosphere. Suppose you
used to drive or take the school bus, but now you walk or ride a
bike. Over a year’s time, and even with rainy days and holidays
thrown in, you could really make a difference.
Don’t you think it’s time to get started?
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breathtaking adj. amazingly beautiful; awe-inspiring
headline n. sentence that states important news
high-pitched adj. shrill or piercing to the ear
roost n. a place for birds to rest or stay; v. to rest or stay in
one place, as birds do
vital adj. of critical importance
Reader Response 1. Reread Chapter 2. Use information from the
chapter to fill in a chart like the one below. The first box is
done for you. Then write a conclusion you might draw from your
chart. Your conclusion can be a fact or an opinion.
How students in these towns are changing the ways they get to
school:
Larkspur, CA:
Columbia, MO:
Duluth, GA:
Gadsden, AL:
Conclusion:
2. What are some important ideas you learned about the value of
walking or riding your bike more often?
3. Write down another definition of vital. How is it different from
the way vital was used in this book? How is it similar?
4. No one planned on having higher gas prices, but they are having
definite effects on how Americans live. Which of these effects are
positive? Which are negative? How do you feel about them?
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