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BikeSafetyQuiz Mini-Grants

Apply for a 2023-2024 BSQ Mini-Grant

The sign-up (or renewal) forms have some more information and only a few brief questions. Every school that has applied over the past four years has been accepted.

When you sign up, we’ll make your school’s own quiz copy, then send you a link for your students to use and another for you to check their results. (Renewing schools will continue to use the same quiz copy and links.)  Once per semester (or once your students have completed the quiz), teachers report how many students completed the quiz, then Ride Illinois will send a check to your school!

Ride Illinois invites you to join more than 400 Illinois schools that use BSQ to increase their students’ knowledge of bike safety.

Still not convinced?! Download this overview document that summarizes the BSQ Mini-Grant program’s impact and growth since 2018. 

About the Program

Are students in your school learning about bicycle safety – from both bicyclist and motorist perspectives? Are they learning the details of relevant state laws and how to avoid common car-bicycle crashes? Too many people learn only superficial knowledge of these topics.

Ride Illinois, your statewide bicycle advocacy organization, working with IDOT to improve safety of cyclists and motorists on the road, has an easy way to help.

Thanks to IDOT’s Injury Prevention funding, we are reimbursing Illinois schools $2 per student (up to $2,000 per school per grant year, higher if our grant funds allow) for staff time to assign and use our free, online BikeSafetyQuiz (BSQ) lessons as 20-30 minute online assignments. (The quiz stands alone as a lesson. There is no accompanying material for the teacher to present, so this could be a remote learning assignment.) Over 300,000 Illinois students and others have used the interactive, quiz-based BSQ resource to close an education gap and to make our roads safer.

This year’s grant, which runs from October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2024, is available for three different BSQ lessons and student audiences:

Not sure which quiz is appropriate for your students? Before submitting your application, complete our Child Bicyclist Quiz and Adult Bicyclist Quiz to better understand the content and concepts included in each.

How Mini-Grant Funds are Used

We asked teachers to share how their schools use BikeSafetyQuiz Mini-Grant funds. They were happy to share! Here are some of their responses:

  • “We used the funds for a school-wide activity”
  • “We buy student driver magnets for every student”
  • “We use the money for our teen safety club to promote safe driver initiatives”
  • “We have used it to buy signage for the Drivers’ Ed vehicles”
  • “To buy classroom supplies for health and pedestrian safety”
  • “We have given it to the school SADD program to use for Red Ribbon Week and other projects”
  • “The money is then used to pay for field trips for students who do not have the funds to pay”
  • “We used the funds for a school-wide activity”
  • “To educate students about the Tunnel Hill trail in Vienna, IL”
  • “We have used the funds to provide playground equipment for our students!”
  • “To purchase building materials, coding robots, and games for my critical thinking class”
  • “We deposit the grant money into the classroom funds for the teacher to use for field trips”
  • “We plan to buy new brakes for our drivers ed cars”
  • “We bought GoPros to use in the car. This will give our students a new level of instruction as they can play back and watch their lessons”

Mini-Grant Program Summary

The following chart is updated quarterly to reflect the impact of this popular education program.