Cycling skills of children at the core of Turku’s future activation model
The city of Turku is developing a sustainable activation model within the SCALE-UP project. Aim of the activation model is to increase the number of families and children cycling and to encourage the use of other sustainable transportation to kindergartens and schools. This happens by i.e. enhancing the feeling of safety, improving cycling skills and adding to the appreciation of sustainable modes of travelling. Although within the holistic activation model all the sustainable modes of travelling will be promoted, cycling is getting some extra attention. According to studies, cycling may have higher health benefits than walking or taking a bus. Ability to cycle also enables travelling longer distances and contributes to the independence/independent movement of children.
Ability to cycle supports health and physical activity engagement across the lifespan
In Turku, around 40 % of 5th graders have concerningly bad cardiorespiratory fitness, which is bad not only for the health of children but also a threat to their cognitive development and their overall wellbeing. Despite a rising number of children in Finland have sports hobbies already at early ages, this trend continues. Appreciation of having a sports hobby is high amongst parents – and that is undoubtedly important for social wellbeing and development of motor skills but now it is equally as important to focus on active commuting in trying to meet the daily recommendations of physical activity and in trying to improve children’s cardiorespiratory fitness. Kids who cycle to school have been shown to have better cardiorespiratory fitness compared to those who walk or commute passively (Oja et al., 2011). Active commuting to school might accumulate even up to half of the daily physical recommendation, depending on the distance between home and school.
Cycling is, in addition of health benefits, also a faster way of commuting than walking which might be a crucial factor for the pupils coming from 3- to 5-kilometer distances to school. Although 61% of children in Turku live inside 1,5-kilometer radius from lower comprehensive school and 22 % inside 1,5-3 km radius, distances between home and school get often longer when child proceeds to upper comprehensive school due to sparser network of upper comprehensive schools. That is one point why it is important to make cycling to school a strong and established habit already in lower comprehensive school.
Equalizing chances to learn to cycle
Cycling skills develop with both age and experience. As balance bikes have become more common in the second decade of the 21st century, children are learning to cycle at earlier stage of life than before, already approximately at the age of 4,5 years. This transpires in a study conducted in Finland in co-operation with University of Jyväskylä, university of Lisbon and L2Cycle project. (Laukkanen et al. 2021) What we don’t know, is how polarized this phenomenon is. Do parents with lower socioeconomic status appreciate the important skill of cycling high enough to invest in a bike with low economical resources? Or do all the parents appreciate the skill high enough to encourage their children in rehearsing?
Cycling is a complex skill, which consists of at least motor skills and perceptual motor skills. Attitudes and knowledge also have a role in development of the skill. A new study conducted in Ireland (Kavanagh et al. 2020) shows that balance biking is a standalone skill apart from other fundamental movement skills (such as object control skills, stability skills and locomotor skills). This leads to the question, whether cycling should be part of a preschool and school curriculum. Schools and kindergartens play an important role in equalizing and balancing the skillset of children. Although cycling skills are thought to develop on their own, cycling skills and traffic skills might remain weak which in turn may restrict the independent commuting and movement of children.
Diverse focus points during the lifespan of the activation model
Planning of the activation model is in full speed. During Autumn 2022 the model will be tested in 3 schools and 2 daycare units in Turku. In daycares and preschools cycling skills will be advanced by placing balance bikes and bikes into daycares and by offering daycare personnel ideas on cycling games and teaching the skill. Families on the other hand will be offered a chance to attend cycling activities and events. The idea is to teach the children the motor skills of cycling but also to show families how to make it fun concurrently with emphasizing the importance of the skill. Aim of the activation model is to encourage families of kindergarten aged children to cycle more with their parents – that is the way to gain experience in cycling in traffic before attending school, where children are already supposed to travel to school independently. Assumably, the later the skill is learned the less confident children and their parents are in capability of a child to commute independently to school.
Regarding children at school age the aim of activation model will be in rehearsing and reinforcing skills in different environments and seasons, including winter, in addition to rehearsing the perceptual motor skill of cycling and traffic skills. Making cycling fun and strengthening the feeling of competence of children is of utmost importance as well. This action will be integrated into different before and after school activities, which are low cost or free of charge in Finland, in addition to campaigns and events.
We know that physical surrounding such as the number of crosswalks and condition of cycle paths affect the parents’ feeling of safety. As changing infrastructure towards more cycling friendly is slow, what we can do in the meanwhile, is enhancing the skills of children and arising parents state of awareness through activation model. It will definitely be interesting to see whether placing an emphasis on cycling skills will make a difference on active school travelling and children´s health.
Author: Anna-Kaisa Montonen (City of Turku)