Student Research

For a course project during the 2003-2004, Ginny Gray, a senior at Hanover High, asked, “How do the personal vehicle dropoffs at the elementary schools impact our environment?” Having participated in the traffic count and survey, she took the data for occupancy of personal vehicles used to drop off students at the Cross School and the Ray School. She made some assumptions and estimates, then calculated that in a single morning the amount of gas used by personal vehicles to deliver elementary school kids is about 22 gallons in Norwich and 24 gallons in Hanover. The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2), a major greenhouse gas, released into the atmosphere on a single morning is approximately 530 pounds in Norwich and approximately 586 pounds in Hanover.

Ginny went another step and looked at how a small change in our behavior would affect the numbers. She asked, “What if just one day a week everyone carpools so that there are no cars carrying only one student?” After one school year, the savings would be 1,550 gallons of gasoline and 37,200 pounds of CO2 kept out of the atmosphere.

Implementing the 2-student threshold would achieve an approximate 10% reduction in CO2, which is comparable to the goal of the Kyoto Protocol. See www.10percentchallenge.org.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that we need to reduce CO2 emissions by 60-80% to stablize the earth's atmosphere. See www.ipcc.ch.

Bus Routes

Norwich/Dresden
Hanover

Helpful Information

Advantages of Riding the Bus

Student Research

Policies and Questions

Bus Route Changes

Afternoon Activity Bus

School Closings

Delayed Openings

Oversized Items