resource-4-balloons_a4.pdf
Pdf: Educational resource showing above poster.
Walk to School Week is very popular with the children of our kid’s school. The teachers do a very good job of communicating the clear messages prepared by the the charity Living Streets and Travelwise. The ‘60 balloons’ graphic shown above gives a very clear message and gives a direct impact of the result of driving your kids to school.
Clear communication is key to a campaign becoming successful and having the desired maximum impact. Only this way will behavioural changes be made. Walk to School Week is a good example of how intelligent, clear and focused environment campaign messages can effect change within communities across the UK.
Oops, balloons filled with CO2 shouldn’t float (note the picture above). OK, the campaign wasn’t perfect! 
Yes, absolutely Matt.
Our school sent letters out asking if anyone wanted to take part in the Walk to School week. I’m not sure what the response was but me and my family took part. I’m a bit ashamed to admit though that we could only take part in the walking home from school – we still had to use the car in the mornings because of my job.
The kids loved it Luckily it was a fine week too. We live almost three miles away from our school so it’s a fair old walk. Now they want to walk every night. We do when we can but their after-school activities make it impossible to do every night. If only there was a reliable and convenient public transport infrastructure. There would be no problem then.
I love this quote from one of your links:
“I believe it is time to give the streets back to people on foot – to recreate living streets”
Spot on!
Three miles! Blimey, that is a stretch. My family lives right next to the school.
Living Streets are an interesting organisation. I know someone who has had a lot of dealings with them. In fact I think he is their area chairperson now.
One thing they’re into is doing street furniture audits and looking at how pedestrianised areas are designed. Sounds a little bizarre but actually interesting to see how one’s neighbourhood space can be better used, made more pleasant. Also they like to see road taken back for pedestrian use.
My kind of people!
Do you know about walking buses. A walking bus goes past my house to the local primary school. You know they’re coming from their singing!
Re: balloons. Western Australia’s state government has TV ads using balloons to represent carbon emmissions, and they’re floating up into the atmosphere. I think it must have been at the latest advertising conference and they forgot to check their facts. The balloons in the ad are black, so its a bit darker than the Walk to School poster.
=^.^=
Hi Clare
Yes, ‘walking buses’ are used by some schools over here. Aren’t balloons such a simple way to get the CO2 message across.
matt,
I love those balloons! We walk back home from school, just under a mile, most days of the week, and if we go the long way round through town centre, the boys help me carry groceries home in their backpacks! (I am on a ‘no-plastic bags for me’ campaign too.) The morning walk is harder to coordinate when 2 out of 5 of us are not prepared to make the effort … and we are invariably late. However, I have an idea that schools should encourage kids to walk, even if they get to school a bit late … as that is one of the reasons many of us hop in the car at the last minute: the kids avoid getting into trouble and getting black marks for tardiness that way. Hmmm … and the other problem for some kids is the weight of their backpacks. Our current school has a locker for every child, so they have a safe place to leave things, and hardly anything gets nicked. Some schools have no good lockers and things are stolen left right and centre. So, I am all for walking to and from school, and providing stars for kids that do so (instead of black marks if they are a little late) and also decent lockers for storage instead of carrying their belongings around and damaging their backs.
We will do Walk to School week this year, rain or shine. (We were soaked today in a downpour, but we are waterproof.)
Hi inel
You bring up some excellent points.
The country has recently gone nuts again on lateness at schools. Whereas Denmark is experimenting with a more relaxed approach for work and school whereby people are allowed to come in later. They call it the B-society.
Reported here; http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2370239,00.html
The B-society website;
http://www.b-society.org/
I know in Amsterdam the idea of people starting work at different times is also positively encouraged.
Your point about lockers is also a good practical point. And after all practical measures and good planning are what make ideas and systems work, supposedly!
[...] Update: my mistake: matt’s other blog, Environment Solutions, covered Walk to School Week! [...]