Vision

In September we noticed more and more cars dropping off and picking up students. We are a walking school, which means that our students live walking distance to the school. We wanted to inspire more students to walk or bike to school.

Action

Our Eco Crew presented to our parent council and asked for their support with Walking Wednesdays and shutting down the school parking lot. Parent Council supported this idea! We started in February with Winter Walk to School Day and have been closing the parking lot on Wednesdays. Our Eco Representatives in each class presented a slide deck with reasons why walking to school is beneficial to us and the environment. We challenged classes to walk to school. We then noticed that our bike racks at school were full most days. We decided that we should try and purchase new bike racks so more people can bike to school. We applied for a grant through LSF and we were successful.
With our new bike rack we are able to double the number of bikes that can be safely stored at school! We decided to make May Bike Month at Donald Cousens PS. We launched it with a Bike Night on May 2nd where families could come and learn about Bike safety, road rules, bike maintenance. It was a big success with over 200 people attending! Once again, our class reps shared a slide deck about Biking to school and we challenged students to switch from 4 wheels to 2 and bike to school!

Reflection & Celebration

We are really proud of our Active Transportation campaigns this year and we think we have started to change some mindsets about driving to school. Having the new Bike racks installed this Spring will provide more opportunities for students to ride their bikes to school.