The National 4-H Council considers its mission to be "an uncommon youth development organization fostering innovation and shared learning for youth workers and young leaders." With oing Places, Making Choices: Transportation and the Environment, the Council has succeeded in developing another outstanding educational resource. Designed for grades 9-12, the curriculum is comprised of five units:

Unit 1, Cruise through History looks at transportation and community changes over the past two centuries and the environmental impacts of transportation.

Unit 2, Natural Resources and Energy Use considers the impacts of nonrenewable and renewable resource use in transportation, personal transportation choices and how they affect the environment.

Unit 3, Sweating Over Climate Change: Air Pollution and Climate Change explains threats from air pollution, ozone depletion, and global warming and the potential responses to air quality threats.

Unit 4, Land Use: Leaving Our Imprint On the Earth explores how transportation systems and choices affect land use, and how communities use zoning and other means to plan growth and transportation.

Unit 5, A Matter of Choice: Going Places, Making Choices, Taking Action examines personal values and decisions about environmental and transportation issues and how they affect the choices that individuals and consumers make.

The curriculum materials meet the National Educational Standards and include both teacher facilitated and self-directed learning opportunities. A flexible format allows teachers to use one unit or the entire program. Each unit contains learning goals and expectations on the unit along with web site resources. Assessment tools are included to document student learning.
Student portfolios can also help assess their learning.

Unit activities are lesson plans. For example, the unit on land use helps students understand the connection between land use, transportation, environment, and lifestyle. Learning objectives also focus on sustainability, carrying capacity, community design, and the land use process.

The curriculum is based upon the five competency areas identified by Pittman as essential for youth success: health and physical competence, personal and social competence, cognitive and creative competence, vocational competence and citizenship competence.

An excellent list of resources and internet contacts including reference materials from Peter
Calthorpe, Jane Holtz Kay, and 1000 Friends of Oregon is another nice feature of this curriculum.

For additional information, visit the National 4-H Council main website.