Students at Falls Church High School are using their research and marketing skills to contribute to the Orange Cones No Phones campaign in an effort to influence their peers about the hazards of talking and texting while driving.
Students are working on a communications program that aims to reduce the number of students who practice distracted driving in construction zones. Using tools learned in marketing class, the students will identify the reasons teens use cell phones while driving and create strategies to help end the practice. They will collect background information, do research, analyze the information, present their findings, and make recommendations that will be included in a written and oral presentation. Along with the Falls Church High program, marketing and DECA programs at 10 other Fairfax County public schools have been invited to participate in a competition for the best campaign. Students at Annandale, Langley, Lee, Madison, Marshall, McLean, Oakton and Woodson High Schools and Lake Braddock and Robinson Secondary Schools are included in the competition because their attendance areas fall within the Hot Lanes corridor and they are impacted by the construction. Orange Cones No Phones is a regional campaign that focuses on reducing distracted driving in the Capital Beltway HOT Lanes construction zone. The marketing competition is sponsored by Transurban-Fluor and AAA Mid-Atlantic. The winning program is scheduled to be implemented early in 2011.
