HEAL works with community partners for Active & Safe Routes to School sharing event
- Post by: Moe
- 5:23PM Jun 28, 2019
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On July 18th, members of the Human Environments Analysis Laboratory (HEAL) were joined by over 40 community partners at Civic Gardens, London for the Active and Safe Routes to School (ASRTS) of St. Thomas, Elgin, London, Middlesex, and Oxford Sharing Event. The event provided an opportunity for attendees to learn more about the ASRTS Steering Committee, ongoing programs and resources, and new opportunities for schools to engage in activities supporting active school travel across the region.
The event featured a presentation from HEAL Masters Student, Alina Medeiros, about our work on connecting active school travel with climate change through our Go Green Travel Clean project. She also highlighted a recent pilot study we conducted in collaboration with Erin Mutch (Thames Valley District School Board) at Sir Arthur Currie PS to develop an intervention with grade 5 students to try to increase active school travel and air quality around the school. HEAL Senior Research Associate, Dr. Andrew Clark, discussed how the ASRTS committee is moving forward during 2019-20 school year. This included important events like iWalk 2019 theme of GoGreenTravelClean, Active School Travel Story Contest, an update of the ASRTS School Travel Planning Manual to address equity, and a fall campaign focusing on Roundabout Safety.
Other presentations were made about the ASRTS Steering Committee and programs (Tara MacDaniel, ASRTS Co-Chair & Middlesex London Health Unit), Ontario Active School Travel Fund (Melissa Waters & Kristy Kastelic, SWO Student Transportation Services), Wayfinding Signs (Danielle Tobin, City of London), CanBike (Dianne Szoller, CanBike London), School Travel Planning Equity (Pam Ewart, Southwestern Public Health), and Parent Champion Led School Travel Planning (Shauna Roch & Carolyn Jelly, Jack Chambers PS; Rachel Eskin, Middlesex London Health Unit).