Students at the Siloam Springs Intermediate School are getting active and learning lifelong cycling skills through a new Riding for Focus program provided by a partnership between the nonprofits BikeNWA and Outride.
The school was selected to be part of the program in July, which provides a fleet of 34 bicycles, helmets, starter maintenance equipment, teacher training and curriculum, according to teacher Chuck Jones. It was one of six middle schools in Northwest Arkansas chosen to participate in the program in the fall of 2020 and spring of 2021, according to the BikeNWA website, bikenwa.org. BikeNWA and Outride had support from the Walton Family Foundation on the educational initiative, the site states.
The program teaches sixth through eighth graders bicycle skills and safety, giving them knowledge to become lifelong riders, the site states. Students learn about riding etiquette, fitness and training concepts, decision making and bike handling, it states. The program also uses cycling as a tool for students to achieve academic, health and social success, it states.
In Siloam Springs, physical education students get to learn in-depth skills and ride bicycles as part of a six week fitness unit, Jones said. The curriculum includes 12 lessons, each of which build off each other, starting with basic skills such as starting and stopping, then working up to more advanced skills, he said. The curriculum also teaches students about safety and to be aware of what is going on around them, he said.
"It's really good stuff," Jones said. "It just breaks it down into the fundamentals of riding a bicycle."
During a class period last week, some students who had never ridden before the program were practicing their balance while others who were more experienced were zooming around with confidence. At the end of the lesson, students practiced a slow race, seeing who could get to the finish line last without losing their balance, putting a foot down or turning. The activity teaches balance skills, Jones said.
Because the intermediate school serves fifth and sixth grades, fifth graders also get to participate in the program, Jones said. All students in the school will cycle through Riding for Focus during their fifth and sixth grade years and hopefully advance their skills even more in their second year, he said.
"Our goal is to be able to take these bicycles and go out to City Lake and ride them out there and be able to teach kids how to safely ride on trails and sidewalks and things like that," Jones said.
Jones is hopeful that cycling can become a lifetime fitness activity for students. There are plenty of good trails and safe places to ride in Northwest Arkansas so cycling is an activity students can do with their families on the weekends, he said.
"We want kids to be active," Jones said. "Not everybody likes sports and so we want kids to learn how to be healthy and how to be active, whether you're playing a sport or whether you have a recreational activity you enjoy doing."
About 50 volunteers showed up to help assemble the bicycles when they arrived during the third week of school, including the local National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) team for middle and high school students, Jones said.
"We are hoping as we get kids riding, we can introduce them to the NICA program if they are interested in doing something like that," he said.
