Olympic Team partners with Active At School in education program
On Tuesday in Vancouver, the Canadian Olympic School Program announced a partnership with Active At School in front of hundreds of cheering kids.
At Sir Sandford Fleming Elementary School, Olympic women’s hockey champion Meaghan Mikkelson was on hand to help launch the initiative, along with Olympians Michelle Li and Sandra Sassine. Also joining the group was men’s national rugby team player Nathan Hirayama.
The program, developed in partnership with Active At School, is designed to reach over 250,000 students in Canada in a bid to increase the level of physical activity among school children.
Meaghan Mikkelson
Active At School was conceived by Olympic Team partner Canadian Tire as a way to get kids active for 60-minutes a day.
“I was very fortunate to have been given the opportunity to be involved in sport and be exposed to a healthy lifestyle, and as a result, sport has brought so much to my life,” Mikkelson, who won Olympic hockey gold with Canada in Vancouver and Sochi, told Olympic.ca. She hopes through this initiative more students will choose an active path, and Mikkelson feels it is vital for her to “promote physical activity in schools” across Canada.
Olympic fencer Sandra Sassine (left in white) surrounded by kids and Komak.
Educators took to the school program in massive numbers in 2014. Over 180,000 education resources were downloaded in English and nearly 60,000 in French. While it is a Canadian guide, the free-to-download resources have been used throughout the United States and in over 100 countries worldwide.
Highlighting the latest edition are a teacher’s guide for daily physical activity, a tracker for recording activities, and challenge cards featuring Olympians. The primary goal of the program since 1987 has been to extend the spirit of the Olympic movement to classrooms. This year Active at School joins to put an emphasis on physical activity.
