Safe Routes to School
MDOT Launches Poster Contest to Promote Kids Riding Bikes to School
Deadline for entries: March 1, 2012
The Mississippi Department of Transportation is partnering with Saris Cycling Group, a manufacturer of bicycle racks and cycling training products, to launch a poster contest to get fifth graders to think about the benefits of the bicycle. The contest is asking 5th grade students to create a poster around the theme “Bicycling takes me places!” The purpose of the contest is to promote youth riding bicycles as a way to lead an active lifestyle.
One winner will be selected from each state to receive a bike, bike light, and helmet. One National winner will win a trip to the 2012 National Bike Summit in Washington DC and their school will receive bicycle parking to park twenty bikes and a bike/walk tracking system called The Hub.
National Bike to School Day - May 9, 2012
The Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Program enables and encourages children, including those with disabilities, to walk and bicycle to school safely. The program sets out to make walking and bicycling a more appealing transportation option for students in grades kindergarten through eighth, thereby encouraging a healthy and active lifestyle from an early age.
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Forty years ago, roughly half of all children ages five to 18 years old walked and bicycled to school. Today, 85% of our children are driven to school either by bus or private vehicle. Approximately 25% of the country’s morning traffic is private vehicles driving children to school. The result? Increased traffic congestion, a reduction in air quality and the deterioration of our children’s health. And in Mississippi, 4 out of 10 of our children are at-risk of becoming overweight or are overweight and obese.
Our goal is to facilitate the planning, development and implementation of projects and activities that will improve safety and reduce traffic congestion, fuel consumption and air pollution in the vicinity of primary and middle schools.
Through available federal funds, communities can stage a wide variety of projects and activities to encourage, from building safer street crossings to establishing programs that encourage and educate children and their parents to safely walk and bicycle to school. |
Contact Us at Mississippi Safe Routes to School
Resources
MS Dept. of Education-Office of Healthy Schools
Lesson plans centered on the goals of the Mississippi Safe Routes to School program are on the Health in Action on-line database. These lesson plans provide teachers with new ways to fulfill the health instruction requirements for K – 8 students.
- Statewide Crossing Guard Training Program – developed to assist in promoting safe crossing for all children in schools zones. For more information, call the MDE’s Office of Healthy Schools at 601-359-1737.
MS State Dept. of Health - Office of Preventive Health offers presentations and assistance with Safe Routes to School education and encouragement activities like walking school buses and bicycle rodeos.
- Safe Route STARS: Teams of young energetic performers who teach pedestrian and bicycle safety and promote safe walking and biking as fun, healthy ways to get to and from school safely.
The program includes:
· Classroom instruction
· Follow-up hands-on skills training with on-foot street crossing lessons and on-bike safety skills lessons
· School and community-based outreach events to encourage parent participation in safe, active transportation.
The 45-minute presentations are free! If you are interested in bringing the Safe Route STARS to your school or have questions about other Safe Routes programs offered by the MSDH, contact Nikki Johnson at 601-576-7781.
- Walk to School Day Event Planning: MSDH has created a website designed to provide schools and other organization the resources needed to plan and stage a Walk to School Day event. Go to www.healthyms.com/walktoschool and begin planning!
National Center For Safe Routes to School assists states and communities in enabling and encouraging children to safely walk and bicycle to school. The National Center serves as the information clearinghouse for the federal Safe Routes to School program.
- Safe Routes to School Program Evaluation: Data is vital for SRTS programs. The National Center provides resources and tools to help make collecting, summarizing and analyzing data as easy and straightforward as possible.
- Standardized Forms Instructions: These basic instructions explain how to distribute and collect the two standardized forms.
- Student Travel Tally: This one-page form can be used to collect information about student travel to and from school at the classroom-level.
- Parent Survey: This two-page form can be used to collect information about student travel, important issues, and parental attitudes. The National Center offers paper-based and online survey collection.
Submit your data: Access the online data system to create or return to an account, enter new data from paper forms, and view summary reports.
Walking School Bus: A group of children walking to school with one or more trusted adults. For more information about this program and how to begin one, visit Walking School Bus Basics.pdf. You may also download a previously Walking School Bus Webinar.
Children with Disabilities: The SRTS Program was designed to include all students in Kindergarten through eighth grade. Some students have disabilities and require different strategies for their inclusion in the SRTS Program. Visit Involving Students with Disabilities.pdf to learn more about broadening your program for all students.
MDOT Project Development Manual for Local Public Agencies establishes the basic requirements for planning, design and construction for all SRTS and other federally funded projects under the oversight of MDOT.
Bike Walk Mississippi is Mississippi's advocacy group for all things bicycle and pedestrian.
- Certified Bicycle Instructors: a listing of the League of American Bicyclists’ certified instructors located throughout Mississippi who are available to teach and train students and other groups in bicycle safety.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
2011 SRTS Conference Presentations:
Reports
Shifting Modes: A Comparative Analysis of SRTS Program Elements and Travel Mode Outcomes
How Children Get to School: School Travel Patterns from 1969 to 2009, http://www.saferoutesinfo.org/sites/default/files/resources/NHTS_school_travel_report_2011_0.pdf. This report gives the results of school travel trends tracked for four decades.
Getting Results: SRTS Programs That Reduce Traffic, first in a 3-part series, shows how specific schools in Utah, Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina, Vermont and California measured success after using a variety of traffic reduction strategies. (From the National Center for Safe Routes to School)
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What's Afoot - Mississippi SRTS Newsletter
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