Have your kids ever gotten excited about an old shoe? Hudson Transportation Management Association (HTMA) is using a beat-up sneaker and some gold spray paint to get students in Hudson County fired up about walking. The HTMA Golden Sneaker Award Program is designed to pick up where the successful Walking School Bus Program leaves off, by encouraging children to walk not only to and from school, but outside of school as well to places such as stores, parks, and other local destinations.

 

The Golden Sneaker Program is an inter-class contest that promotes education, environmentalism, and physical fitness. To win the Golden Sneaker Award, a class must out-walk their schoolmates during a one-week period. The distances are measured by pedometers which are distributed by HTMA to the schools free of charge. Students carry the pedometers with them to record the number of steps walked during one 24-hour period. Students take turns receiving the pedometers in the morning and then passing them on to classmates the next day. The teachers record the data each morning before the pedometer is passed along. At the end of the week, the class with the highest number of steps is awarded the Golden Sneaker Trophy. Jay DiDomenico, Director of the HTMA, reveals that as students track their daily walking, “they are shocked at how many steps they

are taking.”  

 

Teachers appreciate that the program not only promotes health and exercise, but that the competition for the coveted Golden Sneaker addresses topics that complement other subjects the children are learning. Ashley LaParre, a third-grade teacher at the Dr. Walter F. Robinson School in Bayonne, NJ, said, “I like the fact that I am able to incorporate exercises in mathematics such as addition, subtraction and ordering; lessons in science including distance calculation and ecology; and lessons in health discussing the benefits of exercise.” Jay DiDomenico said that the curriculum is highly interactive and designed to keep eight and nine–year-olds engaged. He added that“2nd and 3rd graders were chosen because it is an age where kids still get excited to participate in the program, but are old enough to understand and complete the academic aspects, too.”

 

While it is the 2nd and 3rd graders who actually participate in the Golden Sneaker Award Program, older students in the school are not left out. Working with the data generated by the younger children, students in upper grades are encouraged to participate by converting the amount walked by the younger kids into car-miles not driven and tons of CO2 notemitted into the atmosphere.

 

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