Ecology of Natural Environments

William Wong, 16, USA

Air pollution is a real problem in San Francisco, the city where I live. Most of that pollution comes from too many cars concentrated in a small area. Countless trips are made in cars that could have been made on bicycles. I am active in a national campaign, "Get Out Spoke'n!" and our main goal, to make America more bike-friendly, applies directly to this problem of too many cars and not enough bicycles on the road. If more people would ride their bicycles to school, then it would reduce the amount of air pollution in the air. This is the story of how I did something to get some cars off the road to try to reduce some of the air pollution by encouraging students at my school to use bikes as their form of transportation to school.

I am a national board member of a youth environmental group called Earth Force. Our mission is to encourage young people everywhere to change their communities and care for their environment now, while developing life-long habits of active citizenship. Last fall we decided to start a national campaign to reduce air pollution by making America more bike-friendly. We decided to call this campaign "Get Out Spoke'n!"

Acting on behalf of the Earth Force "Get Out Spoke'n!" campaign, I decided to get my school to install bike racks on the school campus. I asked my former biology teacher for help in starting a petition, and he informed me that there had been some bike racks outside his classroom. But for some reason, they were removed. I asked the vice-principal about this, and he told me they were taken out because no one was using them and therefore no longer necessary. When I told him about the Earth Force "Get Out Spoke'n" campaign, he told me it was a great idea and that he would reinstall the bike racks. Now there are three bike racks where kids can park their bikes at school.

My next project is to work with my school's bike club to organize a bike day in May at my school to help celebrate National Bike to Work Day. We are going to give free bike tune-ups and are assembling a committee that will be in charge of advertising our bike day.

It is my hope as an Earth Force board member that kids all across America will join in our campaign. We are planning a national launch this September in Washington, DC and in Santa Barbara, California. Free campaign materials that tell kids and adults how to start making their community more bike friendly will be distributed this summer on our web site, at www.earthforce.org, and to anyone who calls us at 1-800-23-FORCE.