Turnpike official hopes to see roads’ stories being taught in schools
When Tom Fox looks at the path the Mon/Fayette Expressway has taken from concept to pavement, he sees beyond the landscape, maps, studies and meetings. Fox sees years of teachable information.
Promoting an effort to get this information into local schools in the form of a multimedia kit, complete with lesson plans, Fox is the program manager for the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC) western regional office in New Stanton.
“Years from now, this will be part of the history of your community,” he said.
Fox said roadways are part of everyday life, and the state turnpike system is the first of its kind. He said the building of a roadway like the Mon/Fayette Expressway is a timely project that affects everyone in the community, although it is likely the process is not commonly understood.
“It dawned on us that this is not taught or reflected in Pennsylvania history or part of any traditional curriculum. We thought it would be an opportunity to get into classrooms and educational institutions,” he said.
“We thought this was an opportunity to tell people about PTC and what it does and what has to be done in today’s modern society to build a road.”
The Mon/Fayette Educational Outreach Program Real World Connections kit features an interactive compact disc, a VHS videotape and collection of lesson plans related to mathematics, ecology and the environment, science and technology, history, speaking, reading, writing and listening. It is aimed at sixth to 12th grades and also includes the option for a speaker.
Jennifer Vanderburgh of McCormick, Taylor and Associates in Pittsburgh, the firm that created the kit, said about 50 to 70 of the kits have gone out to local teachers – and the creators are working to gather feedback.
Vanderburgh said a teachers workshop was held at the Intermediate Unit 1, and another is planned for March 24. The program also was presented during a teachers in-service session at Uniontown Area High School, and it will be presented March 21 to seniors at Brownsville Area High School.
The lesson plans relate directly to Pennsylvania’s academic standards that teachers must now follow in the classroom. An advisory board of local educators helped out with the development, including Dr. James Dowler, curriculum specialist for the IU 1.
Dowler said textbooks a few years old might not address academic standards, and even newer textbooks might not relate directly to Pennsylvania’s standards. He said teachers are looking for resources they can easily use and that relate to the standards, and the lesson plans in the PTC kit are structured to be flexible.
“What’s nice is teachers can take the lesson plan format and adapt it to any classroom environment,” he said.
The content of the kit also relates specifically to the students, he said, as they learn about this part of their surroundings.
Vanderburgh said the compact disc is the highlight of the kit and can be used by itself as an educational resource.
The disc is organized into three sections that describe the PTC, the chronology of the turnpike system and the process of developing a transportation project. The disc includes a subsection on the Mon/Fayette Expressway that is accessible in each main section.
The kit can be adapted to any other transportation project by replacing the Mon/Fayette Expressway information, Vanderburgh said, and the turnpike commission and its projects in general may be taught simply by removing the information specific to a project.
“The goal was when we do these projects like the Mon/Fayette Expressway, we collect a lot of data on the communities and it does not get utilized. In our experience, teachers would like to get their hands on real-world connections,” Vanderburgh said. “It’s bringing the teachers tools they can use to make a real-world connection. For example, one of the lesson plans asks the teacher to review on the CD the environmental impact portion and identify natural resources in their area and then look at a different area of the world and compare and contrast how the two areas treat the natural resources.”
The kit is offered to local teachers at no cost.
Fox said it was developed as part of the PTC public outreach efforts and is actually a pilot program in this area.
“It is experimental at this point,” he said.
The kit first was introduced in September and is still being distributed in the area. Fox said the teachers’ feedback will help in fine tuning the kit and adapting it at some time to other transportation projects.
Fox noted other groups like colleges and universities may be interested in learning more about the PTC and its projects, and Vanderburgh said the compact disc may be distributed to local libraries for public use.
“We (PTC) truly want to continue to participate in and be part of the communities that have been affected by our roads,” Fox said.
For information on obtaining a copy of the Mon/Fayette Educational Outreach Program Real World Connections kit, call Lisa Yackovich of the turnpike commission at 724-755-5261. The PTC Web site is www.paturnpike.com.