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Canada Walks

April 2011 Walkolution e-News

In this issue

Ontario Schools Register Now for Spring into Spring

Put a Spring in Your Step With the iCANwalk Pledge

Active Healthy Kids After School

Parents and students speak up for walking and biking to school

Halton Region's ASRTS Project wins an IABC Award of Excellence

The Active Healthy Kids Canada Report Card is coming!

Downtown Brantford Transformed into an Urban Campus

Sustainable Happiness

Use Your Senses on the School Journey

SPARKING Life: Power Your Brain Through Exercise

Walking Around the World

Ontario Schools Register Now for Spring into Spring:

April 21 - June 8

Spring is here! Get active and Spring into Spring; and why not team it up with

'iCANwalk to school...can you?' Register your pledge and track kilometers walked by

your students and staff, both to school and at school.

iCANwalk to school...can you? is brought to you by Green

Communities Canada and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of

Ontario. The Heart and Stroke Foundation believes that every

child deserves to grow up healthy and is committed to helping

schools create healthy community environments. Spark

Together for Healthy Kids, Jump Rope for Heart and the Heart

Healthy Kids tool kits are three unique resources to help our

children be active and healthy. Get involved and be informed

at http://tinyurl.com/2dkd9pg.

Put a Spring in Your Step With the iCANwalk Pledge

Spring is in the air! You could watch the season unfold from your car window while

you sit in traffic OR you could enjoy the smells, sounds and sights of spring that can

only be experienced while walking. Not only will you benefit from the physical

activity, but the environment will be a healthier place as well. If every Canadian left

their car at home just one day a week, we would save about 3.8 million tonnes of

April 2011 Walkolution e-News http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs035/1101954641760/archive/11050...

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greenhouse gas emissions each year - the equivalent of taking about 800,000 cars

off the road.

You can do your part by taking the iCANwalk Pledge and

identifying locations in your community that you can

easily and safely walk or bike to. So far 21,421 kg of

green house gases have been saved through pledges.

Put a spring in your step and take the pledge today!

Back to Top

Active Healthy Kids After School

Green Communities Canada is representing

the Canadian Active & Safe Routes to School

(ASRTS) partnership on an exciting initiative

- Active Healthy Kids After School.

The project is led by Physical and Health

Education Canada (PHE Canada) and is a

collaboration of nine national organizations:

Active Healthy Kids Canada

Active Living Alliance for Canadians with a Disability

Boys and Girls Clubs Canada

Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical

Activity

Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute

Canadian Parks and Recreation Association

Green Communities Canada

Physical and Health Education Canada

YMCA Canada

The objectives of the Active Healthy Kids After

school project is to enhance the delivery of

quality after-school programs that involve

increased access and opportunity to engage in

physical activity and healthy living and

nutrition programs. The Canadian ASRTS

partnership's role is to provide support and

guidance on active travel to after school


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programs.

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Parents and students speak up for walking and biking to school:

Stepping It Up Videos on Youtube:

Kids Say Walking to School is Healthy, Fun and Good for the Environment

How to Get Active on the Trip to School Through School Travel Planning

See parent testimonials, based on interviews conducted across Canada by Green

Communities in March 2011.

Back to Top

See the article Skip the Car: Walk, Cycle, Rollerblade or Skateboard! in the March

2011 issue of People for Education's newsletter. Also visit their online community

discussion to share your walk to school experiences and views.

Back to Top

Halton Region's ASRTS Project wins an IABC Award of Excellence.

The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) awarded Halton

District School Board's ASRTS project with an Award of Excellence. The judging of

the project's communication deliverable resulted in a high score and feedback that

reflected an "excellent lineup of objectives against results which were measurable

and key messages customized to each audience".

The award signals the combined efforts of the ASRTS Project Manager, HDSB's

Communications Manager and Graphic Artist and a Halton Region Communication

Specialist. Click here to learn more about Halton's ASRTS project.


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Charles R. Beaudoin's Walking School Bus

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The Active Healthy Kids Canada Report Card is coming!

Mark your calendar for April 26. That's the day that the 7th annual Active Healthy

Kids Canada Report Card on Physical Activity for Children and Youth will be released

to the public.

Established in 1994, Active Healthy Kids Canada works to

passionately advocate the importance of accessible,

quality, and enjoyable physical activity for children across

the nation. The annual Report Card is a much-anticipated

release that shines the spotlight on physical inactivity

among kids, drawing national attention to this crisis.

How will the physical activity levels of our nation's children measure up this year?

Stay tuned ....Back to Top

Downtown Brantford Transformed into an Urban Campus

Brantford, Ontario continues to show leadership in creating active, walkable

communities. Here is another Brantford update.

Some 16 years ago, in a Toronto Star article, Brantford's Downtown was declared

'the worst downtown in Canada.' It was a ghost town, suffering a slow decay when

business and commerce abandoned the downtown, and city blocks were desolate

and boarded up.


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Brantford Harmony Square

Ten years ago, Brantford City Council negotiated a partnership with Wilfred Laurier

University to start an urban campus in the former Carnegie Library building which sat

empty for a decade or so. It began with 39 students. Fast forward to today and

2,900 students are enrolled in the Laurier-Nipissing campus.

The development of this downtown campus inspired the re-development of the

downtown with the building of Harmony Square and the recent demolition of the

south side of Colborne Street with the proposed joint YMCA/Laurier Athletic

complex. The Brantford Active Transportation Group (formerly the Brantford

Walkability Task Force) has been involved in ensuring this redevelopment has made

pedestrians a priority. This is especially important when you consider that a majority

of post-secondary students are active transportation and public transit users.

The economic impacts created by thousands of young people downtown are

enormous and the streets have become alive with the vibrancy of the campus.

Harmony Square and Victoria Park now host numerous student activities and events,

restaurants, pubs, and coffee shops have become focal points and downtown

Brantford is once again "a people place."

For more information on the transformation of downtown Brantford, visit

http://www.canadawalks.ca/case_brantford.asp.

Back to Top

Sustainable Happiness

Green Communities Canada's Active & Safe Routes to School program is pleased to

announce the launch of the Ontario Sustainable Happiness Teachers' Guide for

grades JK-6. This ground-breaking resource is available in English and French directly

from the Sustainable Happiness website. It includes lesson plans designed to meet

the Ontario health education curriculum outcomes.

Sustainable Happiness is defined as


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"happiness that contributes to individual,

community and/or global well-being and does

not exploit other people, the environment, or

future generations."(Dr. Catherine O'Brien,

2005). The concept merges principles from

sustainability and happiness studies,

encouraging individuals, communities and

organizations to reflect on opportunities to

leave a legacy of sustainable happiness.

Sustainable happiness concepts have been incorporated into the Children's Mobility,

Health and Happiness: A Canadian School Travel Planning Model project now

underway in every province and territory.

See Dr. Catherine O'Brien on YouTube:

Back to Top

Use Your Senses on the School Journey

Two Bristol, U.K. primary schools, working with their Bike It officers, are part of a

Sensory Journeys project to encourage students to evaluate their school walking

routes by their senses of sight, smell and sound.

Students recorded and drew their experiences and sensory maps were created for

each school. To see the results and learn more visit http://www.sustrans.org.uk

/what-we-do/art-and-the-travelling-landscape and click on Christian Nold.

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SPARKING Life: Power Your Brain Through Exercise

Dr. John Ratey, MD, gave a rousing keynote address at the

PARC Symposium in Toronto on March 22. His message is

that exercise, such as walking, is "Miracle Grow for the

brain" that not only improves mood and attention, lowers

stress and anxiety, staves off addictions, but also guards


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against the effects of aging.

Sparking Life is a U.S. based non-profit organization that

has undertaken the mission to share the word that physical

activity literally changes the way we think. Dr. Ratey is the

author of the recently published book: Spark: The

Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. For

more information visit: http://sparkinglife.org

/page/sparking-life.

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WALKING AROUND THE WORLD

Impressive Global Support For Promoting a Culture of WalkingThe Global Advocacy for Physical Activity Council of the International Society for

Physical Activity and Health released a document in February 2011 that builds on the

Toronto Charter for Physical Activity: Global Call to Action (May 2010). This release

outlines seven "best investments" for improving physical activity across the globe.

Canada Walks' mission of creating a culture of walking across Canada directly

supports 5 of the 7 best investments for improving physical activity.

Landmark Jury Award in USAOn a section of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C., a person travelling on foot

was killed where there was a gap in the sidewalk. The State of Maryland was found

liable for not providing safe infrastructure which would have prevented the fatality.

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Jane's Walks will be taking place across Canada on May 7 and 8. Jane's Walk invites

you to lead a walk in your neighbourhood in an area where you live, work or play. It

simply involves planning a route, thinking through the stories, places and people you

want people to hear about and discuss, then walking your participants through it.

Walk21We are pleased to announce that registrations are now being accepted for the Metro

Vancouver Walk21 Conference, Oct 3-5, 2011. Click here to register now.

For updated information on confirmed speakers and

preliminary program visit the conference web site.

Back to Top


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Our Partners

OntarioOntario Trillium

Foundation

CLASP - Public

Health Agency

of Canada

Heart & Stroke

Foundation -

Finding

answers. For

8-80 CitiesUrban Poling

StepsCountParticipACTION

fesfo


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