P.S. 76 Bike Rodeo
Students at P.S. 76, the Bennington School, in the Bronx, celebrated the completion of a month long physical education unit on bike safety and riding by holding a schoolyard bike "rodeo" on Wednesday. The school and community experienced a tragic loss last June when fifth grader, Michael Needham Jr., was killed after being hit by a speeding car while riding his bicycle in front of the Allerton Library. Since then, P.S. 76 has taken action to equip all students with effective bike safety awareness and skills.
The school's administration and staff formed a Bike Safety Committee, bought bicycle helmets for every student, and partnered with Bike New York to get students pedaling safely. Bike New York provided its Bike Driver's Ed curriculum, its Bike Fleet, a Learn to Ride event for students and their parents, and a brand new bicycle which was raffled off to one lucky student. Did I mention that Bike New York did all of this for free?
Look out Dodgeball, there's a new sport in class. Check out Bike New York's website for information on how your school can get in on the action.
Im from PS76 im in 3rd grade MRS.CERRATI Bates class she is a really good teacher.from JAZLYN im from 302
That sounds like a fantastic program and one that the kids are very excited about--a well put together video all together!
I distinctly remember a very similar rodeo held at our city's rec. center in my youth. For whatever reason it was not incorporated into the school curriculum, so while it was not completely free, the reasonable fees included a bike helmet (with proper fitting explained in a "rodeo" event) and some nifty safety stickers, etc.
I'm all for formalizing this education within an actual school context, firstly to ensure as many children as possible receive it, but also because at that age--if memory serves--riding bikes was pretty darn cool, "competing" in exercises was fun, and navigating orange cones made you feel like you were a racecar driver! Kids remember fun even when it's packaged with education. ...lest we forget.