By virtue of my work with the PEI Home and School Federation, I’ve been attending meetings related to the SHAPES survey this week.
SHAPES is a survey that students complete, starting in grade 5, about their “health behaviors” — the H stands for Health — every two years. The survey data is collected by UPEI researchers and used to produce a biennial report that’s used to drive policy.
We have found that reviewing the SHAPES data on a school level is an excellent catalyst for discussion at local home and school meetings, and that’s what drives our involvement with the effort.
This week we’ve been meeting with SHAPES researchers, and others involved in the project, to discuss the development of more focused “drill-downs” into specific topics. On Wednesday the meeting was about physical activity and it was held on the UPEI campus.
The campus is only a 30 minute walk from Oliver’s school, where I walk every morning with him and Ethan; there was some irony, then, that I drove to the meeting at UPEI to discuss ways of increasing physical activity in our youth.
The irony was not lost on me, and I resolved that for yesterday’s meeting, on healthy eating, I would walk to UPEI.
So I did.
It was a lovely day, bright and warm, and the Confederation Trail, which runs a straight shot from Birchwood Intermediate to UPEI, was in fine shape.
This morning I have no SHAPES meetings, but it’s another bright (though not so warm) day, so I decided, after dropping off Oliver, to just keep on going to UPEI.
Which is where I tap out this post, on my phone, sitting in a comfortable chair in the library. In a minute or two I’m going to keep right on going and walk up to Royalty Centre to rendezvous with my ride to Kensington for a home & school event.
If this fever continues, Oliver and I might just walk to to Farmers’ Market tomorrow.
