The Walking Wednesday challenge has officially kicked off across Auckland. So far there are over 20 schools that are participating in this initiative. We are wanting to promote children walking, riding, carpooling, park and walk or scootering to school to ease the congestion at the school gate and to promote health and wellbeing. If walking is not an option we have the badminton court carpark were the children can walk from. Children earn points for their class and school when they choose a sustainable mode of transport to get to school.

The challenge is sponsored by Mercury and schools have the opportunity to win cash prizes anywhere between $500 and $6000. As well as class prizes for the class with the most children choosing sustainable ways of getting to school. During this term there will be events held to help encourage participation.

We collected some baseline data before the challenge began and the results came is as:

45% students travelled to school by single-household car

25% were dropped off nearby

23% walked

2% ran

2% biked

Over the year we are hoping to see improvements in our school data. We look forward to seeing lots of children walking to school and having fun!