Mayor Rogero visited Safety City today at 165 S. Concord Street.
Safety City is a Community Service Project of the Knoxville Police Department.
The concept of Safety City is one of providing "hands-on" safety education within a child-size setting complete with buildings, paved streets and sidewalk, working traffic signals and traffic signs. Students receive classroom instruction in basic pedestrian, vehicular, bicycle and fire safety. Then, students are able to practice and demonstrate their safety skills in participatory activities on the Safety City site. Participatory instruction can include pedestrian exercises, traffic activities through driving child-size vehicls and bicycle and fire skills.
Mayor Rogero toured the facilities and even tried her hand at driving one of the small "cars" on the streets of the miniature city.
The objective of Safety City is to provide an early educational program for elementary school children (kindergarten-fourth grades). The program will teach children about vehicular, pedestrian, bicycle and fire safety. The skills taught at Safety City will empower youngsters with the ability to avoid needless accidents and instill good safety habits at an early age.
Safety City was created primarly for elementary aged children. Two different structured programs are offered at Safety City. During the school year, they offer a four and one half-hour program, which targets students in the second grade. Teachers in the Knox County School System assisted in creating the curriculum. In the summertime, a three-hour program is offered to organizations with children ages 7 to 11.
Special events at Safety City are offered to people of all ages. These events include special days in the summer when families can bring their own bikes with helmets, battery-powered cars, non-motorized scooters (no skateboards), doll buggies or walking shoes to Safety City to have open riding and play. Safety City opens as a park on these days. There are two playgrounds with picnic areas adjacent to Safety City: one toddler and one designed for children ages 5-9.