Hi there! Have you ever played the game Red Light, Green Light? It’s a fun game where one person is the “stoplight.” When they say “Green light,” everyone runs towards them, but when they say “Red light,” everyone has to stop. The goal is to reach the stoplight without moving on a red light. This game is a lot like real traffic lights, which help cars and people know when to go and when to stop on the road.
Traffic lights are super important because they keep us safe on the roads. Imagine a busy street with cars, buses, bikes, and people all trying to cross at the same time. Without traffic lights, it would be a big mess, and there could be accidents. Traffic lights help everyone take turns so they can cross safely.
Let me tell you about a smart inventor named Garrett Morgan. He lived a long time ago and loved to solve problems. One day, he saw a car crash into a horse-drawn cart at an intersection. This made him think about how he could help prevent accidents. So, he invented an early version of the traffic light called the three-position traffic signal.
Garrett Morgan’s traffic light had three arms that a traffic officer could move. Depending on where the arms pointed, some lanes would see a “stop” light, and others would see a “go” light. When all the arms were up, it meant everyone had to slow down and get ready to stop. This is similar to the yellow light we see today, which tells us to slow down.
Garrett Morgan wasn’t the only one with ideas for traffic lights. In Britain, someone made a traffic light with red and green lanterns, but they kept exploding! In Los Angeles, traffic lights had bells that rang when the light changed. And in Baltimore, a traffic light changed when you honked your car horn. Over time, inventors kept improving traffic lights until they became like the ones we use today.
Traffic lights were invented because people like Garrett Morgan saw a problem and thought about how to fix it. They used their creativity to make roads safer for everyone. You can think like an inventor too! Look around and see what problems you can solve. Who knows, maybe you’ll invent something amazing one day!
That’s the story of traffic lights! Remember to stay curious and keep asking questions. There are so many things to learn and discover. What will you explore next?
Traffic Light Craft: Create your own traffic light using colored paper, cardboard, and markers. Cut out circles for the red, yellow, and green lights and glue them onto a cardboard strip. Use this craft to play a game with your friends or family, where you act as the traffic light and give signals for them to stop, slow down, or go. Discuss how it feels to control the flow of “traffic” and why it’s important to follow these signals.
Observation Walk: Take a walk with an adult around your neighborhood and observe the traffic lights. Count how many you see and notice how they change from red to green to yellow. Discuss with your adult why each color is important and what might happen if people didn’t follow the lights. Try to spot any other traffic signs or signals and talk about their purpose.
Inventor’s Challenge: Imagine you are an inventor like Garrett Morgan. Think about a problem you see in your daily life, such as waiting too long at a traffic light or needing a better way to cross the street safely. Draw a picture of your invention and explain how it would work to solve the problem. Share your idea with your class or family and see if they have any suggestions to make it even better.
Sure! Here’s a sanitized version of the transcript:
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(phone ringing) – Hey, it’s Esther. Have you ever played the game Red Light, Green Light? The leader of the game is called the stoplight. When he says “Green light,” you run towards him, but when he says “Red light,” you have to stop. The goal is to get all the way to the stoplight without running into the red light. This game is inspired by real life. Stoplights, also called traffic lights, tell traffic when to go and when to stop. Someone named Ryan has a question about traffic lights. Let’s give Ryan a call. (phone ringing) – Hi, Esther. – Hey, Ryan. – I have a question for you. Why were traffic lights invented? – That’s a great question. I’m sure you’ve seen traffic lights before. Depending on where you live, you might even see so many traffic lights every day that it’s easy to not think about them. They’re just an ordinary part of a busy street. But I have a question for you. What do you think would happen if we didn’t have traffic lights? Now would be a good time to pause the video and discuss. Okay. You ready? These days, you’re most likely to find traffic lights when two or more roads meet at what’s called an intersection. Take a look at this busy intersection here. There are so many different kinds of traffic: cars crossing this way, cars crossing that way, plus buses, bikes, and people walking. Imagine what would happen if they all tried to cross the intersection at the same time. Yikes. They would crash. To cross an intersection safely, traffic needs to take turns. But how do you know when it’s your turn? This is what traffic lights are for. They tell people when it’s safe to cross the road and when they have to wait for other traffic to finish crossing. But there was a time before traffic lights. Even before cars were invented, busy intersections around the world became crowded with horses, carriages, carts, and people. Some inventions are created by one inventor, but traffic lights weren’t like that. Because so many places had overcrowded intersections, inventors scattered around the world were inspired to help people take turns crossing the roads. I want to tell you about one of those inventors here in the U.S. This is Garrett Morgan. Garrett Morgan is best known for creating an early traffic light, but his story as an inventor goes way beyond that one machine. By the year 1920, Garrett Morgan had been thinking like an inventor for a long time. He’d already invented several products, from hair-care creams to a speedier sewing machine. He was especially good at inventing things that solved problems. For example, as a young man, Garrett Morgan read a news story about a terrible fire in a New York City factory. Many people had been hurt. Garrett Morgan learned that firefighters had struggled to rescue workers trapped in the burning building, not just because of the flames, but also because the building was filled with smoke, which made it hard for them to breathe. Now, this fire really had nothing to do with Garrett Morgan. He didn’t know anyone involved, and it happened many miles away from him. Still, when Garrett Morgan heard about the fire, he thought about what he could do, what he could invent, to help. He invented what he called a safety hood, a gas mask that could help firefighters breathe safely in smoky areas. With Garrett Morgan’s invention, firefighters could rescue more people from future fires. A few years later, Garrett Morgan found yet another problem that needed solving. As the story goes, Garrett Morgan was out on the street one day when he saw a car smash into a horse-drawn cart at an intersection. Now, sadly, this was a pretty common thing to see at the time. Garrett Morgan lived in Cleveland, Ohio, a busy city with lots of traffic, and back then, not many good ways to help traffic move safely. Many people saw crashes like these, but Garrett Morgan was an inventor. When he saw the crash, he immediately started thinking about what he could create to keep crashes like these from happening. His solution was an invention he called the three-position traffic signal, an early traffic light. Here’s what it looked like. Garrett Morgan’s traffic light might not look much like the traffic lights you see today, but it basically worked the same. His light had three arms which a traffic officer could move into different positions. Depending on which direction the arm was pointed, some lanes of traffic saw a light that said stop, while others saw a light that said go. This helped cars, carriages, and other traffic take turns crossing. And when all the arms were raised like this, that meant that all the traffic had to slow down and get ready to stop. Maybe you can think of a part of a modern traffic light that does something similar: a yellow light. This slow-down-and-stop signal gave the traffic crossing one way time to get out of the intersection before traffic crossing the other way started crossing. Garrett Morgan’s invention made the streets of Cleveland safer, and soon, people started trying it out in other cities and towns in the U.S., Canada, and even Britain. But remember, Garrett Morgan wasn’t the only inventor to come up with a version of a traffic light. Many other inventors before and after him added their own designs and ideas. In Britain, an inventor created an early traffic light using red and green lanterns. It did help direct traffic, but the lanterns kept exploding. Later, Los Angeles tried traffic lights with bells that rang every time a light changed. Useful but a little annoying. One traffic light invented in Baltimore even changed when you honked your car horn. And eventually, inventors started building traffic lights closer and closer to the ones we use today, like this design invented in Detroit, Michigan. So in summary, traffic lights were invented because many creative people like Garrett Morgan chose to think like inventors. They saw a problem—crashes and crowded intersections—and thought about what they could create to solve it. Even though some ideas worked better than others, their combined efforts led to the traffic lights that still help keep us safe today. And we still need people to think like inventors. What problems do you see? What do people need help with, and what solutions can you invent? I can’t wait to see what you come up with. That’s all for this week’s question. Thanks, Ryan, for asking it. Now, we’ll be back with a new episode in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime, here are some older questions from the question jar. You can vote on which ones you think we should send out next week. You can choose from: why do we have tears when we cry? How did cotton candy get its name? Or how are diamonds made? So submit your vote when the video’s over. We want to hear from all of you watching. There are so many mysteries around us. Stay curious, and see you next week.
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