40,000km Walk

Will you join the IH community during October, November and December to walk or ride a bike instead of using a car to reduce harmful carbon emissions?

We would like the whole IH community – teachers, colleagues, students, friends – to walk a combined 40,000 km. This will save emissions, and encourage us all to make changes to live a more sustainable lifestyle.

40,000 km is the circumference of the earth so the IH community will be giving our precious planet a metaphorical hug.

What should I do?

1. From October to December 2021, get your school community walking. Tell them, encourage them, challenge them, reward them - whatever you have to do!
2. Share on social media with #IHProtectOurPlanet. Pictures of feet walking would be great!
3. Total up how many kilometres everybody in your school is walking. Tell IHWO once a month, and we'll update our Global Totaliser
4. If your teachers have found good ways to integrate into lessons, share these ideas on the DOS forum, 

Anybody can get involved - students, staff, their friends and parents, your suppliers and contacts. Add up all those kilometers!

There is no right or wrong way to take part - this is designed to be flexible so you can adapt to what will work best in your school, We'll share different ideas as schools tell us the great things they are doing.  To get you started, here are some ideas:

• Challenge your teachers. This could be an individual challenge, or the teachers could challenge the admin staff, or a class!
• Different classes could challenge each other, with the school keeping a leaderboard.
• You could set a school or class target at the start of term, and keep encouraging everybody to meet it as the term progresses. 
• Choose a "partner IH school" and calculate how far it is to walk there. (For example, the distance between IH Wroclaw and IH Milan is about 1050km, or between IH Madrid and IH Dusseldorf is about 1,650km. Set that as a target, and when  you reach it arrange a zoom call with walkers in your partner school to celebrate. 
• Choose a mid point to meet. IH Buenos Aires and IH Guyaquil are both about 3000km from Lake Titicaca. Meet there! 
• Choose a place of significant ecological interest to walk to. Yosemite National Park is about 3,500 km from Mexico City. Target meeting there and research the role that had in the environmental movement in the US.    
• If people want to record "steps" from their devices instead of km, that is great. On average one km equals 1300 steps.

IHWO is challenging all IH schools to get involved. We are keeping a leaderboard and will announce the winning school at the AMT conference in January 2022!

Totaliser to the end of November 2022

In November even more school staff and students have engaged with this challenge. Across the network we have now walked a total of 33,582km. Wooohoo!!! This is 84% of our target achieved, with a full month to go. Well done to everybody! if we can keep going at this rate maybe we will reach 50,000km. Every km walked is some more harmful CO2 saved. 

Resources for you

There are a selection of graphics, flyers, posters, totalisters, social media headers, etc ready for you to use and adapt. In JPG, PNG, PDF and word formats. See below for a selection! 

All media are downloadable from the marketing section of the members area. Click here to access>>

For teachers, here are some articles that you might like to use in  your lessons:

The Environmental Impact of 4,168 tonnes of CO2 >>

7 Health Benefits of Walking>>

Why walk 40,000 km ?

We have set a target of 40,000 km because that is the circumference of the earth. We want the whole IH community to walk around the earth by the end of the year, giving it a metaphorical hug. 

How much CO2 will 40,000 km save?

Different cars burn different amounts of fuel, and it depends how new they are, how well maintained, and how well driven. But according to the European Environment Agency, the average emissions from new cars in 2018 was 120.4 grammes of CO2 per kilometre.

Walking 40,000 km instead of driving means saving 4,816 tonnes of CO2 greenhouse gas, as well as lots of harmful pollutants. This really is helping to protect our planet, and if we raise awareness and people change their habits for ever, that is wonderful. 

Schools! Three good reasons to get involved

1. It's a straightforward way for your whole school community to engage on a single objective. 
2. It's good way for your school to promote itself within your wider community, fitting well with other environmental and health initiatives you are pursuing. 
3. It's a great topic for reinforcing the global reach of the IH network - we'll have pictures of feet walking all around the world on facebook, tick-toc and instagram for all IH schools to share. 

Teachers ! Three good reasons to get your classes involved

1. Your students want to do something to help protect the planet - they will be motivated to take part.
2. You could use this as the basis of some project work - for example the effects of fossil fuels on the environment. 
3. There are lots of heath benefits of walking - both physical health and mental health. This is a good link to curriculum topics around health. See this blog>>

Other teachers around the IH network will be sharing lesson ideas (via the DOS group), Use, and contribute your own. (More details later)

If you would like any more information, please mail [email protected]

Media to download >>