Kids Riding Bikes is off to a busy start (just the way we like it) to begin the 2017 – 2018 school year here in Central Indiana! Since the school year officially launched for us on August 14th we have delivered our nationally recognized Kids Riding Bikes program to 11Â schools, 3 community events, and upwards of 3,000 youth here across Central Indiana.
Our traditional Kids Riding Bikes has been administered at seven schools in the Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) school district; all of them except for School 61 we are serving for the first time in the short history of Nine13sports. Furthermore, in addition to our programming at IPS, Kids Riding Bikes returned to Avon to get the 7th & 8th grade students at Avon MS North moving on our bicycle simulators for the third straight year.
Not only have you seen Kids Riding Bikes in Avon at North, but you could also find us at Avon Intermediate School West as we rolled out our STEM-based education curriculum to the 5th and 6th grade students. The students participating in our STEM curriculum are given the opportunity to grasp the engineering, math, science, health, and transportation benefits of the bicycle as they actively engage on our bicycle simulators. Many students have learned how to take their heart rate for the first time and have learned what your heart rate can tell you. Both schools in Avon have been a direct result of our ongoing partnership with the leading healthcare provider in Hendricks County, Hendricks Regional Health. Keep your eyes peeled for the rest of the semester as we have several schools in Hendricks County on the docket for our programming.
Avon Intermediate School West wasn’t the only school we delivered our STEM curriculum at however; we also continued our STEM programming in Ripley County at South Ripley Community School Corporation and Milan Community School Corporation working with the junior high school students. The students have been learning about heart blockages, heart rate, and how important it is to be heart healthy and how useful the bicycle can be in living a physically active and healthy lifestyle. Many thanks to our partners at GPS: Genesis Pathways to Success (GPS) for partnering with us for another year to highlight just how educational and practical the bicycle is and always will be. You truly are empowering students to succeed in STEM in Ripley County.
Lastly, our community event programming is still going strong as you could find Kids Riding Bikes in the Kids Zone at St. Thomas Aquinas School’s annual SausageFest, Tri Kappa ‘Fair on the Square’ in downtown Danville, and at the Health and Wellness Fair for Harrison College in Columbus, Indiana.
Thank you to aforementioned partners, as well as The Lids Foundation, Inc., Finish Line Youth Foundation, The Lilly Endowment, Inc., Central Indiana Community Foundation, and countless others for helping us make such a significant and lifelong impact on thousands of youth already this school year!