Since 2018, Ride Illinois’ BikeSafetyQuiz mini-grant program has been shared with schools in Illinois as a means of offering bike education to their students. We’re pleased to say that the program has experienced growth each year since its launch, in part due to the incentive for schools to receive $2 per student for completing the quiz. Our program is funded by IDOT with federal 405(h) funding for non-motorized safety. In the current fiscal year, we have funding for up to 45,000 students. Please help us spread the word so we can meet our goal!
The mini-grant program has strong support from high school driver’s education teachers. More than 160 high schools are participating in the mini-grant program this year to date. Ride Illinois also made the funding available to all K-12 schools in Illinois in 2021 and the response has been very encouraging! And more than 70 elementary and middle schools have submitted applications since October.
Applying for a mini-grant is really easy! After a teacher (or administrator) signs up, Ride Illinois staff creates a custom copy of the Google Form(s) the teacher or administrator requested and shares a link to the Form (to share with students) and the Google Sheet that captures the results (to share with teachers and administrators).
Once schools have a copy of the quiz, teachers assign the online quiz to their students. Our quizzes provide students with an opportunity to learn from their mistakes. If a student answers a question incorrectly, a rationale is provided as to why the answer is incorrect, and then the same question is asked again. After the class or school completes the quiz, the teacher completes a simple claim form. Then, Ride Illinois mails checks to the school. It’s as simple as that!
The chart above shows the reach of the BikeSafetyQuiz mini-grant program since its inception in 2018. It’s worth noting that we’ve already sent checks to schools for over 15,000 students in just the first three months of the current fiscal year. We’re reaching more K-8 students than in the past and will continue our efforts to educate students in elementary and middle schools.
Illinois residents can help us achieve our goal of reaching 45,000 students by sharing information about our mini-grant program with the schools and teachers in their community! In particular, we’d love to offer this program to more schools in central and southern Illinois.
Of course, Ride Illinois is a big proponent of this program. But, you don’t have to take our word for it. We’re fortunate to have feedback from several teachers who have used BikeSafetyQuiz over the past few years. Here is some of the comments that we’ve received recently:
Ride Illinois is proud of our BikeSafetyQuiz mini-grant program. While more can always be done to educate cyclists and motorists about safety, our program is one simple, effective way to reach students across Illinois to increase their knowledge. We sincerely hope that this program will continue to grow and evolve in the years to come!
Learn more about our mini-grant program at rideillinois.org/bsqgrants. Contact Ride Illinois at info@rideillinois.org or (630) 216-9282 with any questions or comments. Thanks!
Photo by Jessica Lewis from Pexels