What is Bike to School?
The latest trend in sustainable mobility is Bike to school/work/sport/holiday…, an Anglo-Saxon way to define the habit of traveling on two wheels powered by muscle to go to work, school, practice sports, or reach your vacation destination. Among all these declinations of bike to, the most interesting is bike to school, aimed at school-age children (and not too overprotective parents).
How Does Bike to School Work?
The project, which arrived in Italy for the first time in some Roman schools in 2015, provides that children go to school all by bicycle, all together, accompanied by teachers, parents, or adults willing to guide the group of young cyclists. Everything happens in maximum safety: children wear protective helmets and a high-visibility vest for the entire duration of the ride. Upon arrival at the school, they ring bells and blow whistles to declare the mission accomplished.
From Rome, Bike to School has spread like wildfire in major Italian cities, also thanks to European funds from PON METRO 2014-2020.
The environmental education that this experience imparts to the children involved in the projects is certainly one of the most important and valuable aspects of the initiative: by getting used to traveling by bicycle at an early age, young cyclists will have a better chance of growing up as responsible adults and not slaves of the car.
If you like spending time outdoors and immersed in nature, visit the sections nature in Veneto and parks in Veneto
The psychological and emotional growth of children is positively influenced by the task they are set every day to reach school independently while avoiding dangers.
The daily ride also positively affects, of course, the physical development of young cyclists, while the large urban center benefits positively from the reduction in traffic, albeit modest, due to the fact that the bicycle replaces the car for the home-school-home commute.
Projects like bike to school are entrusted with the task (and hope) of reversing statistics regarding the number of children who go to school alone: in Italy we have dropped to 16%, a reversed percentage compared to the 1970s, and which sees us far behind Germany, where 3 out of 4 children arrive in class unaccompanied.
The experiment has already yielded good results in Great Britain, where in a few years the number of independent children has grown by 200%.
Bike to School: Projects in Veneto
The Veneto Region did not stand by while the rest of Italy tried to put young citizens in the saddle: we started talking about Bike to School at the Cosmo bike Mobility in Verona (September 2016).
In the 2016-2017 academic year, the project arrived in some schools in Venice, with an information campaign under the slogan “for one day… everyone to school by bicycle.” The leader was the Parolari school (March), followed by Virgilio (April 6), Battisti and Santa Barbara (April 7), Querini (April 11), Calamandrei and Bellini (April 20), and Povoledo (April 21).
Once going to school by bicycle becomes a pleasant habit and you can’t wait to get in the saddle to ride exciting itineraries immersed in nature in the company of your friends or in peaceful solitude, you can enjoy the many benefits associated with cycling, from healthy physical activity to exposure to sunlight, important for improving mood and reducing nervous and muscular tension.
Outdoor physical activity also helps improve sleep quality and psychophysical well-being. Going to school by bicycle with your classmates, with whom you can meet and ride together even after classes, also helps foster sociability and friendship bonds, values that in our increasingly sedentary society are unfortunately fading.
