Zavala students were taken on walks in the area surrounding their school and asked to identify points which interested them, for both positive and negative reasons. The children individually rated each interesting point based on five factors: smell, sound, look, cleanliness, fun, and safety. They also mapped their routes from home to school either during an in-class activity or as a homework assignment.

Proximity of Hazardous Material Sites to Children’s Walking Routes to School
This map illustrates the relationship between the number of students who walk on each block on their way to school and the location of hazardous materials (hazmat) sites and industrial land use. Thirty-two 5th and 6th graders mapped their route from home to school. The spatial extent of the area mapped was defined by the Zavala Elementary school assignment boundary.

Hazardous materials information was collected from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The orange, red, and brown dots represent sites that use hazardous materials in the operation of their businesses and are registered with Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The yellow dots represent sites that are abandoned industrial or commercial sites in urban areas that have remained undeveloped because of contamination and fear of liability and are voluntarily being cleaned.

Brownfields used for industrial sites do not need to be cleaned up to the same level as those used for residential or commercial development. But these are directly adjacent to residential and to schools these are concentrated along the railroad that will eventually be used for the new MetroRail. The blue lines represent how many children walk on each block to school, with the darkest blue representing the highest number of children.

Industry, hazardous materials and children's walking routes.

Analysis
There are 73 hazmat sites within a half-mile buffer around Zavala, and 32 within a quarter mile of the elementary school. The hazmat sites in the study area are clustered around the industrial land use and along major streets. The streets bordering east and south of the school have the most student pedestrian traffic. Twenty-two percent of the students walk by either an industrial use or hazmat site. No children walk on the two blocks directly north of the school, which have high industrial land use. This could be because the children choose routes that avoid these hazards.

In order to draw firmer conclusions and arrive at policy proposals, it is necessary to map the walking routes of all students at Zavala. This information will allow for the assessment of conclusive trends and patterns regarding the proximity of children’s walking routes to locations of environmental hazards. Future research could also integrate data regarding the hazardous materials present at these particular hazmat sites, which would facilitate analysis of children’s exposure and associated health risks.

Perception of Environment by Point and Sense
The following maps illustrate children’s perceptions of points in the area surrounding their school based on six senses: smell, sound, look, cleanliness, fun, and safety.

Each sense is represented on one of the six maps in this series by a different shape. The shapes range in color from green to red, with green representing the best rating and red representing the worst rating. The symbol displayed at each point represents the worst rating that any child gave that point. The opinions of the children are stacked on top of each other with the most positive feeling on the bottom layer, and the most negative feeling on the top layer. If a point shows up green, it means that all the children felt positively about that point. We want to make it a safe walk for all children, so we focused on the worst rating at each point. If even one child feels unsafe, it is not an acceptable route for children.

The blue lines represent how many children walk on each block on their way to school, with the darkest blue representing the highest number of children.

Perceptions of smell.	Perceptions of sound.
Perceptions of sight.	Perceptions of cleanliness.
Perceptions of fun.	Perceptions of safety.

Industry and children's perceptions of safety.

Analysis
The majority of the points selected by children near Zavala had no smell or a good smell. The largest concentration of points which children rated as smelling “bad” or “nasty” were located on Santa Rosa Street, Santa Maria Street, Santa Rita Street, and Julian Teran Street, which are largely residential. There were also a few poor smelling points identified along 5th Street, which likely correspond to industrial facilities.

Industry and Children’s Positive and Negative Perceptions of the Environment
These maps illustrate children’s positive and negative perceptions of points in the area surrounding their school. For the map of positive children’s perceptions, the points displayed represent any point that any child rated positively based on any sense. The size of the point represents the number of senses that were given a positive rating by any child and the color helps distinguish between points that received positive ratings for different combinations of senses. The green blocks illustrate the blocks where the children generally felt “safe.” The yellow blocks represent a moderate feeling of safety, and the red blocks indicate a “scary” feeling.

Children's positive perceptions.	Children's negative perceptions.

Analysis
The majority of the points with positive ratings were located south of the large band of industrial land use concentrated around 5th Street. The points receiving positive ratings of the most senses were Comal Park, a field, and a garden, all located southwest of Zavala. One point labeled by the children as “drugs” also received many positive ratings, likely because their perception or the evidence of drugs did not affect all of the senses in a negative manner.

The majority of the points with negative ratings were located north and east of Zavala. Three of the five points receiving poor ratings in four sense categories were located adjacent to Zavala, including points labeled by the children as “burning metal”, “drugs”, and “house”.

Only fifteen children participated in the pilot study, so this data is by no means indicative of the perceptions of all of the children at Zavala. However, these maps illustrate trends which could form the basis for an expansion of this study. The clearest trend is that the children’s perceived safety of a block seems closely related to their perceived safety of particular points on that block. In general, “scary” points appear on “scary” blocks, and “safe” points appear on “safe” blocks. Most of the “uncomfortable” blocks have points which some children felt were safe and others felt were scary.

Links
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
Texas Voluntary Cleanup Program
Texas Environmental Profiles – Abandoned Hazardous Waste Sites
All Systems Go Long-Range Transit Plan: Cap MetroRail
GIS Report