Students from Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools recently led a campaign to raise awareness about the links between transportation, health and climate change. The campaign, called “Driving is Exhausting,” brought yard signs to car circles across the district encouraging drivers not to idle and to instead turn their engines off when waiting for more than 10 seconds.

Eighth grader at Phillips Middle School Hazel Grine is involved in the campaign. She says the idea came from permanent signs posted in public car circles across the county by the Commission for the Environment.

“These signs were put up by leaders in Orange County and with CHCCS,” says Grine. “We didn’t think drives would actually pay attention to those signs, or if they saw them they might not really be bothered, so we thought if we provided drivers with some really good reasons to stop idling, and we made it more of a campaign, they would be more likely to stop.”

Those signs read “Turn Off Your Engine – Kids Breathe Here.” Freshman at East Chapel Hill High School Maleehah Ward says concern over the health of students is an important aspect of the campaign as well.

“A lot of it is affecting our health,” says Ward. “Cars produce toxic tailpipe emissions right at the level where kids breathe, and that’s really bad for us. It can actually make our asthma worse. So I think it was wanting to help the environment and wanting to focus on our health.”

Students at Phillips Middle also tested for harmful particles during afternoon pick-up times in their car circle and worked with Clean Air Carolina to analyze their data. More information, including a toolkit to help students generate awareness and action, is available at www.drivingisexhausting.com.

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