secondary students

In high school, WALKING & CYCLING ARE SOCIAL ISSUES.

Urbanthinkers has been collaborating with teens for over a decade developing resources and activities with social networking strategies for secondary students.

We can help you work with youth leaders in your community - through school or youth centre workshops.

Our work begins by helping to change attitudes and circumstances so that teenagers enjoy taking part in physical activities such as walking and cycling. From there, we support your work with student leaders to raise the challenge for teens to increase both the frequency and tempo, while seeking out new opportunities to incorporate physical activity into their weekly routines.

Urbanthinkers has dozens of resources – adaptable to suit the character of your secondary school community and its student leaders.

HIGH SCHOOL TDM - speaking notes from pre-Walk21 session in Vancouver on Oct 2nd 2011

High School TDM Issue Paper

The vast majority of School Transportation Demand Management (TDM) projects to-date have been directed towards young students and the parents who accompany them to school. As a result, the descriptor Elementary has been assumed within the field referred to as ‘School’ TDM.

Although it is commonly understood that these Active and Safe Routes to School initiatives are not effective in Secondary School, very few initiatives have tried to address the resulting gap. Instead, most high school projects have narrowed their focus to either cycling, or environmental sustainability.

As a result, reports of the growth and success of ‘School’ TDM programs this past decade mask the reality that half the school population - i.e. secondary students - lack the strategizing, development and implementation of targeted TDM resources.

The identification of this gap in comprehensive TDM strategies aimed at teenagers highlights a need for a distinct focus, approach and support network. Specific attention is needed to respond to the challenges of promoting sustainable transportation in high schools. These challenges include; the social focus of strategies, a lack of parent or teacher champion on-site, training student leaders as delivery agents, and a cross-jurisdictional range of partnering services.

This issue paper explores these challenges with an aim to identify strategies to build and strengthen the ability to increase walking, cycling, transit and carpooling trips to secondary school. A review of current and previous initiatives reveals a strong recommendation that secondary school initiatives focus on student-led implementation supported by an Adult Facilitator.

This Issue Paper is still under review, please contact us for a draft copy.