Student Campaign Cuts Idling at Maplewood Middle From 90% to 11%

Students present their Engine Zero project at Maplewood Middle School

By Scarlet Strogov

A team of eighth-grade Maplewood Middle School students reduced carbon monoxide and other harmful air pollutants last school year by urging parents to stop idling their vehicles in the school's drop-off line. Vehicle idling has dropped from roughly 90% of cars to less than 11% this school year, said Theodore Reid, an eighth-grade student working on the project.

The eighth graders, who call themselves Engine Zero, came together through the school's STEAM Tank team, led by Creative Computing and Design teacher Mary-Alice Zavocki. They set out this fall to reduce the amount of exhaust released just steps from school entrances where hundreds of children walk each weekday morning.

Vehicle idling is more than an environmental concern. The Department of Environmental Protection reports that idling engines release pollutants that are linked to asthma and other respiratory issues, particularly among children whose lungs are still developing. New Jersey law already limits most vehicle idling to three minutes, though enforcement is often inconsistent.

The students' approach to the idling problem was simple and measurable: they observed and tracked idling behavior in the drop-off lanes. Eighth-grader Clara Hoffmann said she came to school one hour early most week-day mornings and counted each car that idled for the entire school year.

Then they drew up a plan based on their observations.

Engine Zero framed their campaign not as an abstract climate goal, but as a clean-air goal. As they emphasized in their presentation to the Board of Education, it was a matter of student health and safety. The students also realized that the problem didn't require new technology or laws – just changed habits that follow pre-existing laws.

They decided that they would educate drivers about the impact of exhaust on children's health and ask every family to take an anti-idling pledge. They also erected signage asking drivers not to idle their engines.

This project has earned the team a finalist spot in the New Jersey School Boards Association's statewide STEAM Tank Challenge as well as recognition from the town's decision-makers. After the students presented their plan to officials from the Department of Public Works in February, the Maplewood Police Department, and Maplewood Mayor Victor De Luca, township leaders quickly moved to take action. Mayor DeLuca said that "this—what the kids did—was the most coordinated response the town has seen before to cars idling."

The plan worked, school officials said. In a presentation to the Board of Education on May 21, Engine Zero member Theodore Reid reported that idling vehicles fell from 90% to under 11% in a single school year during morning drop-off.

"It was really cool to see that kids didn't just view this as a project for a competition, but as something that could help both the environment and their respiratory health," he said.

Hoffmann says that "the project as a whole was very important to the environment and for every kid at MMS (Maplewood Middle School), but it also helped me as a student, seeing all of our hard work come together."

The school is currently partnering with the township on a zero-tolerance anti-idling policy, and the campaign supports the school's broader push to earn recognition as a Sustainable Jersey School.

Ms. Zavocki said she is so proud of how much time and energy these students have put into this project, "I help create the community, but they're the ones who do all the work."

Scarlet Strogov is a senior at Columbia High School and a participant in CivicStory’s Summer Newsroom. She is editor-in-chief of The Columbian and the student representative to the Board of Education. Combining investigative journalism with civic engagement, she has published work in The Concord Review and won the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation’s Profile in Courage Essay Contest.