Active Travel
Active travel to school is a great way for children to get fit and prepare them for a day of learning. Children can use bikes, scooters, roller blades and their feet to increase their physical activity levels each day.
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Introduction
Australia’s recommendations for physical activity in children aged 5-12 years are at least 60 minutes (and up to several hours) of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day. For most people, including children, the easiest and most acceptable forms of physical activity are those that can be incorporated into everyday life. An easy way to contribute to the 60 minutes of physical activity needed is by travelling to and/or from school in an active way such as walking, riding a bike, scooter, roller blades or even a skateboard. Even if students live too far away from school to make the whole journey in an active way, they can be dropped off a few blocks away from the school to walk the rest of the way. Travelling by bus usually incorporates walking to the bus stop so that can also be a form of active travel.
In addition to improving health, other benefits of active travel to and/or from school include:
- Children are more likely to be awake, alert and ready to learn when they arrive
- Children enjoy the social aspect of walking or riding to school with friends
- Decreased traffic congestion at the school gate
- Reducing car use reduces greenhouse gas emissions
- It’s more FUN than sitting in a car
Ideas for classroom discussion and activities
1. Ask students to identify the different ways you can travel to school.
Answers could include walking, bike, scooter, skateboard, bus, car or motorbike. With the list you could then ask students to do on or more of the following:
- group them in “active” and “not active”
- put them in order of the most active (the one that makes you out of breath the most) to the least active
- put them in order of the most fun to the least fun
- list the benefits/what is good about each mode of transport to school
2. Obtain a map of the area around your school. Ask students to put a sticker/dot where they live.
Students could then draw a line to map how they get to school by car and then compare it with how they do (or could) get to school by walking or riding. Discuss the differences such as the time it takes and what you might see along the way.
3. For homework, students can ask their parents and/or grandparents the following questions:
- How far away did you live from the primary school you went to?
- How did you get to school when you were my age?
- What did you like about getting to school this way?
- What did you dislike about getting to school this way?
In class ask students to answer the same questions then discuss:
- The difference in the answers
- Why you think the way people travel to school has changed? You could discuss the built environment, people’s attitudes, fear of danger, more cars, people being more rushed for time.
To take it one step further, students can research when the first car was invented and how the introduction of cars has changed the amount of physical activity people get from travelling from one place to the other.
4. Students could create a poster to promote why it is good to travel to school in an active way.
5. Students could plan and implement an active travel to school day for the class such as “Walk or Wheel Wednesday”. Activities could include:
- Design a flyer/logo for the day to go home to parents and put up in the classroom
- Design a chart to record how each class member got to school on the promotion day
- Make it a competition against another class to see who can get the most people to travel to school in an active way
- Visit the Ride2School page
7. For road safety program ideas:
Links to additional resources
