• Organize one day per week or month to travel all or partway to and from school or work by foot, bicycle, bus, or carpool. To make it more fun, name the day - Trekking Tuesdays, Walking Wheeling Wednesdays, Fuel Free Fridays or come up with your own unique ideas.
• Organize a kick-off week for Earth Day and a celebration week for Clean Air Day.
• Teach bicycle skills and then celebrate on Bike to School Day on June 8th or any day that suits your school's schedule.
• Remember to highlight traffic safety. Visit the Way to Go! website for traffic safety information and resources. Click on traffic safety or toolkit in the left hand navigation bar.
• Add climate change and other environmental information to school and work newsletters, bulletin boards and announcements. Here are some helpful sites:
More ideas and resources:
Temperature Rising
Temperature rising: Climate Change in Southwestern British Columbia (sorry, none available for Interior BC but still a great poster). View this informative poster. You can download or order copies of the poster by following the relevant link.
Tips from David Suzuki Foundation
The David Suzuki Foundation have some great tips on what you can do
The Queen of Green also has some general ideas and tips on 'green living'.
Other helpful actions include:
1. Walk, bike, carpool or take transit. If you can, choose human power first. Walk, bike, scooter, skate board - you choose. Not only will you help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, you'll get fit in the process. If you're not used to exercise, go slow. Stay motivated and moving.
2. Shrink the travel distances in your daily life.
3. Drive a fuel-efficient vehicle.
Fuel Efficient Driving
Organize a no-idling campaign at your school. Visit www.saferoutestoschool.ca and click on no-idling for downloadable resources, activities, information cards and more.
National Resources Canada also has tips for fuel efficient driving (under For Personal Use, click on Transportation). Here are some basic tips:
1. Turn off your engine when stopping for more than 10 seconds, except in traffic. More than 10 seconds of idling uses more fuel than turning off your engine and restarting.
2. Use public transport whenever possible. Each year one city bus can take 40 ve hicles off the road, save 10,646 litres of fuel and reduce annual greenhouse gases by 25 tonnes.
School Resources
Schools can arrange, order or download the following curriculum-based programs and resources from:
www.davidsuzuki.org Grade 4-7 Nature Challenge curriculum from the David Suzuki Foundation.
BC Air Quality - Provincial Idle Reduction Initiative: Hub for Action on School Transportation Emissions. An online resource and networking centre, designed to help students, teachers and schools improve the health of individuals, communities and the environment.
Download A Teacher’s Guide to Clean Air PDF from B.C.’s Clean Air Day site to introduce Grade 5 students to important air quality issues.
The Clean Air Achievers Program provides champion athletes to inspire and instruct Grades 7 - 9 students to reduce emissions and increase physical activity by choosing active transportation. The program includes in-class lessons and activities as well as trip recording method.
www.greenteacher.com Green Teacher magazine and books provide practical articles and ready-to-use activities for students aged 6 through 18 to help youth educators enhance environmental and global education inside and outside of schools.
www.walkingthetalk.bc.ca Teachers can register with the BC Working Group on Sustainability Education, an on-line forum that connects environmental educators to each other as well as the latest innovations, workshops and programs.
School Activities
• Create banners to display outdoors for students to see as they arrive at school. Brainstorm ideas and slogans, such as "Walk or Roll to School for Earth" or "Save a Planet: Ride a Bike or Bus or Hike"
• Create poems, catchy phrases, prepare posters out of recycled materials, write and recite rap songs, put on skits or design medallions to help promote and celebrate your Walking Rolling Days or other initiatives.
• Organize a walking group from a nearby location (a local park, community centre, business or church parking lot, for example) so those living out of town can participate. Make it fun and colourful.
• Hold a 6 week or less active transportation contest. Keep a tally of participants in each group. Create a symbolic award such as a golden shoe or a class certificate. Provide a green leaf for each walker to place on a paper vine or a paper tree. Ask local businesses or recreation centres to donate prizes or award an extra recess, gym or coffee time to the winning group.
• Decorate and highlight your Best Routes to School or Work, chosen and mapped ahead of time as the best way to travel to and from school or work on foot or by bicycle. Visit the Hub for Action on School Transportation Emissions (HASTE) website for details.