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Getting Started for Teachers

Two teachers leading a group of students on bicycles through a course of traffic cones in a parking lot

Classroom teachers have a daily opportunity to help students, parents, and the larger school community understand the many benefits of walking and biking to school and to help them do so safely.

Simply making announcements about Walk/Bike to School Day events that encourage active transportation to school will bring awareness to walking and biking as travel options. Teachers can expand the reach of these announcements by sending flyers home about the benefits of active travel to school. If students are unable to walk or bike to school, teachers can try organizing a walk or bike at school event, where everyone takes a lap around the building or track before class starts. See the Encouragement page for more fun ideas to get students walking and biking.

The Minnesota Safe Routes to School Online Resource Center has a wealth of standards-based activities appropriate for each grade level. Working these activities into lesson plans can help  students learn about walking and biking safety, as well as the importance of being active and healthy.

  • Walk! Bike! Fun! Curriculum – This two-part curriculum for students ages 5-13 is designed specifically for Minnesota schools and is structured to meet Minnesota education standards. Students will learn traffic rules and regulations, the potential hazards to traveling, and handling skills needed to bike and walk effectively, appropriately and safely through their community.
  • Facilitator’s Guide to Engaging Middle School Youth – This guide from the Safe Routes to School National Partnership offers practical tools for adult facilitators to promote safe walking, bicycling, and public transit to and from school for middle school students.
  • Classroom Activity Ideas – Safe Routes to School is about more than physical activity. Help students understand the benefits by incorporating walking and biking themes into other classroom subjects with these ideas from the National Center for Safe Routes to School.           

For more details and assistance with classroom activities or share success stories, contact Minnesota’s Safe Routes to School Coordinator or request support for teaching walking and biking skills.