Media Releases

U of T experts, Toronto city planner to discuss active school travel

November 28, 2012

TORONTO, ON – Research con­sis­tent­ly shows that Canada’s chil­dren are becom­ing increas­ing­ly seden­tary and yet with the health of our next gen­er­a­tion in jeop­ardy, one of the eas­i­est and most acces­si­ble forms of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty – the walk to school – is still being passed over by most par­ents.

On Decem­ber 5, hear from experts who are study­ing this chal­lenge from a vari­ety of angles at the free pub­lic sym­po­sium, “What Hap­pened to Walk­ing?  Encour­ag­ing Active School Trav­el in Toron­to.” Host­ed by Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Fac­ul­ty of Kine­si­ol­o­gy and Phys­i­cal Edu­ca­tion, the event will fea­ture:

  • Keynote speak­er Jen­nifer Keesmaat, the City of Toronto’s new chief plan­ner and a pas­sion­ate advo­cate of the walk to school
  • Pro­fes­sor Guy Faulkn­er, lead inves­ti­ga­tor of U of T’s Built Envi­ron­ment and Active Trans­ports (BEAT) project, who will pro­vide an overview of the study and its results
  • Pro­fes­sor Ron Buli­ung, co-prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor  on the BEAT project, who will present geo­graph­i­cal and con­cep­tu­al maps that demon­strate the big­ger pic­ture of our city’s chal­lenges with the walk to school
  • Pro­fes­sor Car­o­line Fus­co, BEAT co-inves­ti­ga­tor, who will share the per­spec­tives of the chil­dren who took part in the study

The pan­el dis­cus­sion and Q&A will be mod­er­at­ed by award-win­ning Toron­to Star archi­tec­ture crit­ic and urban affairs colum­nist Christo­pher Hume.

EVENT DETAILS

When: Wednes­day, Decem­ber 5, 6 p.m.

Where: Isabel Bad­er The­atre, 93 Charles Street West

Reser­va­tions are required; reserve online now for your free tick­et.

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For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:

Valerie Ian­covich
Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Spe­cial­ist
Fac­ul­ty of Kine­si­ol­o­gy and Phys­i­cal Edu­ca­tion
Tel: 416–946-3713
valerie.iancovich@utoronto.ca