Transportation and Safety

By Grades 7 and 8, students love being out independently in their community visiting friends, running errands and playing sports. By taking them through a guided group discussion, students will learn to identify common safety risks. Then, through a dodgeball-like game that simulates common hazards, they’ll learn how to stay safe—whether they’re biking, walking or skateboarding around their neighbourhood.

Grade Level: Grades 7-8

Subject: Road Safety

Time required: 60 minutes

Overall Expectations:

  • HPE – Healthy Living Strand
  • LL – Language and Literacy

Introduction/Minds On
(10 minutes)

  • Distribute Appendix 1: School Safety Zone to your students.
  • Go over a brief lesson summary and ask students to analyze the neighbourhood in the picture and identify all the safety issues they can see.
  • Discuss which safety concerns the students identified and the ones they may have missed.

Development/Action
(35 minutes)

  • Using Appendix 2: Travelling Through Distractions as a guide, play a game that simulates safety issues related to transportation.
  • Alternate groups so that everyone has a chance to be on both the “pedestrian” and “dangers” teams.

Consolidation/Debrief
(15 minutes)

  • Discuss how the students were distracted when crossing the playing field during the game.
  • Compare what happened in the game to some real-life situations.
  • Encourage students to think of safe ways to avoid and reduce risky situations—for themselves as well as others. For example, don’t listen to music while biking.

Teacher Assessment

Use Appendix 3: Rubric to assess students.

Materials List


Learning Outcomes


  • An understanding of risky behaviours related to road safety and how to avoid them.
  • Oral/Comprehension: Listen in order to understand and respond appropriately in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes.
  • Reading/Comprehension: Read and demonstrate an understanding of a variety of literary, graphic and informational texts, using a range of strategies to construct meaning.