| WOW – walk to school challenge | |
| Brief Description | WOW aims to help children to develop healthy lifelong habits by encouraging primary school children and their parents/carers to walk to school. Other objectives are to improve road safety and pedestrian experience, improve social cohesion, improve health and well-being and quality of the environment. WOW rewards primary school pupils who walk to school at least once a week with a monthly collectible badge. Journeys are recorded daily on either an online platform called Travel Tracker, or on paper wall charts. The badges are designed by pupils in an annual badge design competition and made in the UK from waste plastic from the manufacture of yoghurt pots. Teachers and Class Monitors help logging journeys and awarding badges. WOW provides free monthly curriculum-aligned learning resources and assembly presentations. |
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| European Country(s) | United Kingdom |
| Field | Moving: Walking |
| Type | Intervention |
| Impact | Health, Equity, Environmental sustainability |
| Status | Ongoing |
| Target Group | Children & adolescents, parents/carers |
| Evaluation | Yes |
| Level | Local, Regional, National |
| INHERIT Perspective | The intervention is included because it encourages a modal transport shift to walking that increases physical activity among children and their parents/carers. More children walking to school also means reduced traffic congestion and improved safety at the school gate as well as better local air quality and reduced CO2 emissions. Therefore there is potential to improve health and the environment, and potentially to improve health equity. By encouraging walking WOW makes changes to the environmental state (air quality), to exposure and experience through behaviour change. |
| Detailed description PDF filename | Download file |
| Relevant links | https://www.livingstreets.org.uk |
| Contact | info@livingstreets.org.uk |
