Bumper

Stickers

Background Information

Bumper stickers are designed to provide messages that reveal the driver's preferences and beliefs. They are also intended to get others thinking about the message and possibly believing it.

In this activity, students will critique one specific bumper sticker, look for others that provide transportation related attitudes and critique them.

Student Activities

Introduction: A bumper sticker on a truck reads: "Without trucks, America stops."

Work in a small team of three or four classmates. Go outdoors for this activity.

1. Randomly select another truck you see.

a. Assume that you see the same bumper sticker on this truck.

b. Using this truck's load, critique the sticker statement from the perspective of:

• What was the truck transporting?

• Is the load essential to our lives?

• Is there another way the product could be carried?

• What is the sticker's (driver's) attitude about truck transportation?

• What environmental attitudes are revealed by this sticker?

• Based on what you know about trucks gas mileage and pollutant emissions, how might the country benefit if the truck did stop running?

• Is the bumper sticker statement actually true?

2. Find other transportation related bumper stickers:

a. Select stickers that refer specifically to transportation.

b. Vehicles with stickers could include:

• private cars (family cars, teen's cars)
• car pools
• company vehicles
• others

c. Critique these bumper stickers as you critiqued the truck stickers.

Teachers Notes

This activity is designed to encourage students to think critically about some of the many messages with which they are bombarded daily rather than to simply accept then at face value. Students should critique both the message itself and its environment implications.

They should critique other transportation related stickers which they find in a similar manner.

Have students design environmentally friendly bumper stickers.

Interdisciplinary Approach: Earth Science, and Art.