Groundswell Partners with Department of Transportation to Create Traffic Safety Signs with Students in Five Schools

Groundswell Artist Nicole Schulman is currently working in five schools this spring, one in each Borough (PS 135Q in Queens, PS73 in the Bronx, PS6 in Brooklyn, PS35 in Staten Island, and PS4 in Manhattan). Continuing our partnership with Department of Transportation (DOT), she is engaging 5th grade students at each school in the creation of road safety signs for their school communities. In this project, over 80 5th graders are getting the opportunity to work with a professional artist and learn how signs and symbols work to communicate ideas. Each group is developing the art skills needed to create informative traffic signs to increase safety awareness and prevent accidents around their schools. As part of this partnership, Nicole is working in the classrooms with Michael Nesbitt, traffic safety instructor from DOT. With Michael, the students are exploring first hand the traffic safety information provided by DOT’s Safety Education program. A selection of signs designed collaboratively by the students will be fabricated by DOT’s Sign Shop. They will temporarily be installed around their schools in locations that the students have identified as being in need of traffic signage.