Access Members Work with KCCI on Educational Bike Park

We’re proud of Access members Patrick O’Bryant and Callie Watson for their hard work as KCCI 2020 Community Catalysts! Check out what they’ve been up to –

From WCTV

Leon County’s first educational bicycle park was completed this week at Sabal Palm Elementary School as part of a partnership with the Knight Creative Communities Institute.

Sabal Palm and KCCI are collaborating to re-purpose under-utilized spaces, such as the pavilion on school grounds.

Stop signs, bicycle lanes, and crosswalks are now part of that formerly empty space.

“This will provide an educational, fun way for children to learn some of the cycling safety rules of the road,” said Betsy Couch, the Executive Director of KCCI.

The covered training area was phase one, and there are two additional parts to the project.

“One is a much larger scale more kind of complicated traffic series that’s going to be built out on the basketball court, and then the other is we have an off-roading experience,” said Couch.

Couch explained the off-roading experience is geared to teach kids about going up hills and avoiding obstacles on their bicycles, to avoid falling and getting hurt.

The creation of Phase One took staff about four days to paint.

“It’s all for the kids and we just want to make them happy,” said Tyler Bridges with the sign department and maintenance for Leon County Schools.

School staff hopes it will be a fun surprise for children coming back to school after the previous year was cut short by COVID-19.

“We just want our kids to comeback to something really special,” said Principal Anicia Robinson.

“It was fun, it’s always nice to see the outcome and be proud of something like that,” said Bridges.

Phase One is an outdoor learning environment that will be geared toward younger students.

“It gives them a chance to get out of the classroom, get some exercise, and learn bike safety rules and skills,” said Robinson.

Robinson is hoping the children take the knowledge home with them.

“If they’re outside and biking with their family, or even biking to school we want them to ride to school safely and get home safely,” said Robinson.

The other two sections of the bicycle park wil lbe completed as part of a community wellness and painting day after sc

 

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