Immaculate Conception CES helps launch Active School Travel Project in Peterborough

Students and staff at Immaculate Conception Catholic Elementary School helped launch an exciting new initiative in the city of Peterborough aimed at curbing school zone transportation congestion and encouraging families to walk or bike students to school.

GreenUP Peterborough is facilitating a new School Travel Planning Project in Peterborough City and County and officially launched its project at the East City School on Thursday, Nov. 15.

Teacher Mark Martone and his Grade 8 class have created a Be Well group at the school that has been pursuing a Deep Learning inquiry and is encouraging students in the school to adopt active student travel measures under the banners – Be Active, Be Mindful and Be Out There.

“If kids bike, walk or scooter to school, there will be less traffic, which means less pollution, safer roads and healthier kids,” Grade 8 student Shawn Fitzgerald said, speaking on behalf of his classmates.

Clifford Maynes, executive director of Green Communities Canada, spoke during the launch as well.

“In Peterborough, as in other communities across the province, our goal is to work with our partners and take Active School Travel to the next level,” he said.

Additional speakers included Ashburnham City Councillors Keith Riel and Gary Baldwin and GreenUP Executive Director Brianna Salmon.

School Travel Planning (STP) is a community-based approach for increasing rates of active school travel. Through the STP process, stakeholders at the school and regional levels work together to create and implement action plans that use all five Es (education, encouragement, engineering, enforcement, and evaluation) to:

• address travel-related issues at schools; and
• encourage students in the ‘walk zone’ to walk or wheel for the school journey (and encourage students in the ‘bus zone’ to ride the school bus).

Following the launch event at Immaculate Conception, the entire school body participated in an active walk and treasure hunt in the neighbourhood surrounding their school.