‘Scoot Safe’ is an new initiative designed to educate younger students on how to scoot safely to school. As part of this workshop students are guided through the parts of the scooter, what they can do to be safe when scooting and then complete some basic tasks that promote safe scooting behaviour. This initiative was launched early march to coincide with National Scoot to School Day on March 11th and is being offered to schools across the study area via the schools programme and An Taisces Green-Schools Travel Programme. To date over 450 students from four schools in the study have undertaken the programme with further events planned in 12 other schools
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| Scoot Safe Training takes off across the city |
National Scoot to School Week 2015
National Scoot to School Week was a huge success in the Limerick area and has proven to be one of the cities most popular sustainable travel initiatives. As part of this week, Limerick Smarter Travel linked up with Green-Schools Travel to promote the event across the city where reports indicate that over 300 scooted on March 11th!!. The impact of this initiative has been phenomenal and recent visits and calls to schools has highlighted that numbers are on the up since National Scoot to School Week. For instance, 58 students scooted to Salesian Infants on March 11th, the following week numbers as high as 73 were recorded, similarly for St. Michaels Infant School where numbers doubled the week after National Scoot to School Week. Further images are available from here
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| National Scoot to School Day 2015 |
St. Michaels Infant School were busy this month completing a series travel projects such as ‘bling my shoe’ projects, school walks and writing competitions for their 'environmental week' which took place at the beginning of March 2015 . They also used this week to raise awareness about National Scoot to School Week where numbers scooting increased from 0-10 for the event on March 11th and continued to rise to over 23 students scooting to school the following week.
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| These shoes were made for walking |
Following on from the walk-ability Audit completed with the school in late February, students from Our Lady of Lourdes NS undertook an interactive workshop to discuss findings and create a representative map for their school. The school is currently running a major coloring competition to raise awareness about sustainable travel.
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| Follow up workshop to the walk-ability audit conducted in Our Lady Queen of Lourdes |
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| Our Lady of Lourdes Walk-Ability Audit Display...Great Work! |
Secondary School Travel Action Projects
The first stage of this major series of action projects took place this month where the schools programme worked with 2nd year students from Ardscoil & Clements to brainstorm environmental issues relating to increasing car dependency and identify barriers experienced by students attending each school. The students were then presented with an outline of travel planning to date in their school and asked to identify solutions and ideas to promote sustainable transport. This was an inspiring workshop and we received a great deal of input from the boys. These projects will continue to May 13th where the boys will be organizing their first School Car Free Day as part of National Walk to School Week 2015.
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| Brainstorming travel ideas in Clements (March 2015) |
Child Mobility Report Launch 2015
Limerick Smarter Travel Schools attended the Childrens Independent Mobility Report Launch in Mary I this month. This report highlights findings on children’s mobility from 16 different countries where Ireland was cited as 12th in the overall ranking system. A copy of this report is available here. Reports will be distributed to schools in the coming weeks. Congratulations to Dr. Brendan O Keefe and Alanna O Beirne for bring this fantastic report together.Upcoming Events
- National Walk to School Week takes place May 11-15th. Limerick Smarter Travel will be organizing Limericks first 'School Car Free' day as part of this event. Please visit our website for further details
- Schools across the study area are invited to participate in our 'Travel Smart' Art Competition. Further details on this competition are available from our website
- National Bike Week will take place between June 13th-22nd 2015.
Do you have any news stories you would like to share?
We would love to hear from you!
Please email lstschoolproject@gmail.com
For further information on the schools programme please visit our website www.limericksmartertravel.ie .
Regular updates relating to the project are provided via Twitter : @lksmartertravel or @gstravellimerick
