CVU: The Carbon Cutting Leader for Bus Ridership

Did you know that CVU was just given an award called The Carbon Cutting Leader for Bus Ridership? Representative Curt McCormack, Chair of the Vermont House Transportation Committee, and others announced the winning schools at a special celebration in the Statehouse on June 5, 2019.

We reached out to Katie Antos-Ketchum, CVU English teacher in the Fairbanks core, to learn more. She shared this guest blog post highlighting CVU's EnACT club as well as one student's work. 

The CVU Environmental Action Club (EnACT) participated in this year's Way to Go! Challenge. Our "bus" action was a bus ridership survey that was led by 9th grade student Sabina Brochu, who was curious to find out what barriers exist for students to ride the bus. Sabina took on this action as a part of her 9th grade Human Impact Project action which focused on the connection between fossil fuels, transportation, and climate change. 

The Human Impact Project had several components. Back in the winter, students were asked to choose an issue that they care about in the world, research the roots of the problem and its impact, and deliver a speech to educate an audience about their topic. In the spring semester, students shifted their focus to their own potential for making positive change and worked on developing solutions individually, locally, and globally that will help move a negative impact in a positive direction.

Sabina worked with me, the EnACT adviser, to develop her survey so that we could think about how to remove actual or perceived barriers students face in order to promote bus ridership. She presented her findings to the EnACT club this spring.

Of the 229 students who took the survey, 66% agreed that they ride the bus regularly, mostly or sometimes. Here's some interesting information about the students who consider themselves riders. First, 44.7% of our riders reported their travel times were 30 minutes or longer in duration. When asked what keeps them from riding some days, responses that are worth investigating from a systems level include the bus ride takes too long ( 31%), that the bus comes too early ( 23%), and that they aren't sure when the bus will arrive (18%). Social and cultural obstacles included sports or other commitments (49%) and social / personal reasons (25%).

The 34% who reported riding rarely or never also gave us feedback about what keeps them off the bus. For them, 39% reported the routes were too long, 37% said the bus came too early, 20% reported they weren't sure when the bus would arrive at their stop, 30% reported they had sports or other commitments, and 26% reported social/personal reasons kept them off the bus.

EnACT members have examined the data and will continue to problem solve around this topic in the coming year.

Sabina attended the awards ceremony in Montpelier at the end of the school year.

EnACT's mission statement: 

The Environmental Action Club believes that climate change poses significant risks for the future. We strive to cultivate an environmental ethos and action in our various communities. We envision a society whose practices are based on an ethic of conservation and sustainable improvement in the environmental well-being of the community.