Week 1: Sustrans Outside In

Welcome to your first full week of family activities and inspiration. 

Creative, thoughtful and fun things to do. We're here to inspire you indoors and outdoors for the week to come. 

We would love to see how you're keeping active and creative over lockdown. Share your activities with us using #SustransOutsideIn

Day 1: Bike floor art

Create bicycle designs throughout history using everyday items from around the home. 

What you'll need

• Items from around your home of various shapes and sizes
• A clear space on the floor - your 'canvas'.

Instructions

Using the items you have collected, shape them into the design of bicycles.

Share your designs on social media using #SustransOutsideIn

Extension

Too easy? Research iconic bicycles through history such as the Penny Farthing, Boneshaker and the Velocipede. 

Find out what they looked like; what they were made of; who invented them and what year they were first made. 

See if you can recreate these historic bikes at home using floor art.

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Day 2: Be a heart detective

Today, we'll investigate what activity makes your heart beat the fastest.  

What you'll need

• A timer
• A piece of paper

About the heart

Your heart is a very strong muscle. It pumps blood containing oxygen around your body, to every part of you.

It’s super important that we all keep our hearts healthy. This can be done by doing activities that make our heartbeat faster.

How to measure your heartbeat?

Your heartbeat is also known as your pulse. You can feel your pulse by placing two fingers on the left side of your neck.

To measure how many times your heart beats in one minute. Sit down quietly.

Use a timer to count how many beats you feel in 15 seconds. Multiply this by 4. E.g: 19 beats in 15 seconds x 4 = 76.

This will give you how many heartbeats you have in a minute while you are resting, also known as your resting heartbeat.

Watch the video: How to feel your heartbeat

Instructions

1. Measure your resting heartbeat. Record this number
2. Choose an activity that will get your heart racing. Do this activity for a minute, as fast as you can. 
3. Now measure your heartbeat - you should see a big difference. Record your heartbeat again. 
4. Make sure your heartbeat has come right back down to your resting rate before trying another activity. 
5. Repeat the steps and measure your heartbeat against some of the activities below. 

Here are a few to get you started:

What other activities can you think of to get your heart racing? Make your own list and measure your heartbeat against each activity.

Expansion

Get other people in your house involved

Why don't you get other members of your household involved and measure their heartbeat?

Who has the fastest heartbeat? Who has the slowest? 

Can you find out more fun facts about hearts?

What animal has the fastest heartbeat? How many hearts does an octopus have?

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Day 3: Climate change quiz

Take our climate change quiz. See how many you can answer. 

What you'll need

• Pen
• Paper

Round 1: True or false

Write down true or false in answer to the following questions.

1. Climate change is causing more droughts, making it harder to grow food for us all to eat.
2. Climate change is mainly caused by a natural variation in sunbeams and volcanic activity. 
3. The ice caps in the North Pole are melting. This means there will be more water in the sea, causing the sea levels to rise. 
4. People in the UK like you and I won't be affected by climate change. 
5. We can't do anything to prevent climate change. 

Go to answers

Round 2: Anagrams

Rearrange the letters to form a climate-change-related word or phrase.

1. self foils us
2. rain icebox odd
3. re leave isles
4. technical game
5. gold info

Go to answers

Bonus maths question

A primary school child switches to cycling or walking to school every day for a whole school year, instead of going by car.

How much carbon dioxide will they save from entering the atmosphere during the school year? 

Use the following data and advice: 

• The average length of a journey to school is 1.6 miles for primary school children.
• A typical car releases 411 grams of carbon dioxide per mile travelled. That's 27 party balloons. (Carbon dioxide is a gas, so it is helpful to put it into a context we can visualise, like balloons.)
• There are 190 days of school in a year.
• Cycling and walking do not release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. 
• Don't forget the journey home!

Write down your answer. 

The average secondary school journey to school is 3.4 miles. What is the carbon dioxide savings for a secondary school child? 

Looking for another challenge? Find out the exact distance in miles from your house to the school gate. Can you calculate your carbon dioxide savings? 

Go to answers

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Day 4: My Gratitude Tree

Create a gratitude tree. A fun, creative and pretty way of acknowledging the goods things in your daily life.   

Did you know that expressing gratitude can improve your wellbeing as well as improve relationships with others?

Expressing gratitude is a small act that can make a BIG impact on your mood and perspective.
 
With gratitude, we acknowledge the goodness in our lives.

This activity results in a pretty reminder of the things that bring us joy in our daily lives. There is no age limit on finding creative ways to cultivate our gratitude.
 
Let's get drawing.

Instructions

1. Using the leaf template. Draw around the template a few times on a coloured or plain piece of paper. 
2. With adult supervision, carefully use scissors to cut around the edges of the leaves.
3. It's time to decorate.
4. Write and draw the things you are grateful for on the leaves. You could also look for a photograph of something you are grateful for.
5. Take your tree drawing and using the glue, stick each leaf to your tree. You could even get some sticks to add to your tree to make it more realistic.

Behold, your Gratitude Tree! Why not take it in turns to read out what you've written on your leaves?

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Day 5: The Bicycle Board Game

Do you love bikes and board games? We have a game for you.

Download the Bicycle Board Game.

What you'll need

• A dice
• The Bicycle Board Game (download here)
• Something to use as counters

Instructions

1. Print off the Bicycle Board Game.
2. Carefully cut out the Disaster and Smart Cards and place them face down on the squares provided.
3. Put your counters on the Start mark. 
4. Roll the dice, and move forward that number of spaces. 
5. If you land on a green or red square, pick up the corresponding card and follow the instructions. 
6. Return the card to the bottom of the pile. 
7. If you pick up a card and land on another coloured square, do not pick up another card as your go is now over. 

We hope you enjoy our Bicycle Board Game. Why not create and add some of your own Disaster and Smart card ideas?

Share your ideas with us using #SustransOutsideIn. 

Day 3: Answers

True or false

1. TRUE. Climate change is disrupting weather patterns, including more frequent and severe droughts (period of time when a region experiences below-normal rainfall). This is already happening across the world in places like East Africa, and also happened in Britain in 2003. We had a very hot summer, and farmers struggled to grow enough food to meet demand in Britain.
2. FALSE. Whilst volcanic eruptions and solar radiation can have an influence on the climate, scientists have confirmed that the MAIN cause of climate change is human activities involving the burning of fossil fuels; oil, gas, coal, petrol, etc.
3. TRUE. Think of an ice cube melting in a glass. More water in the sea will cause sea levels to rise, resulting in more coastal flooding around the world, and could even cause entire countries to disappear. The Maldives is a country made up of islands (called an Archipelago) in the Indian Ocean. Most of the islands are just a few metres above the current sea level. Scientists think it could completely disappear within the next 100 years.
4. FALSE. Britain has already seen lots of floods as we’ve seen this winter. It’s hard to say exactly what is caused by climate change, but it is affecting the severe weather across the world and here in Britain.
5. FALSE. There are lots of things we can do to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we release. For example, using less electricity by turning things off when we’re not using them, using less petrol by cycling or walking, instead of driving, for short, local journeys.

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Anagrams

1. Fossil fuels – a natural fuel such as coal, oil or gas, formed in the geological past from the remains of living organisms.
2. Carbon dioxide – a colourless, odourless gas produced by burning fossil fuels.
3. Sea level rise – an increase in the average level of the sea with respect to the land.
4. Climate change – a change in global or regional climate patterns, in particular a change apparent from the mid to late 20th century onwards, attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels.
5. Flooding – the overflowing of water in a usually dry area. In the case of floods linked to climate change, this may be caused by rising sea levels or severe weather events.

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Bonus maths question

Calculation: [length of journey in miles] x [party balloons of carbon dioxide released per mile] x [days in a school year] x [number of journeys per day]

So a primary school child with a 1.6 mile journey to school, travelling in a car which releases 27 balloons of carbon dioxide per mile, for 190 days of the school year, twice a day (to and from school): 1.6 x 27 x 190 x 2 = 16,416

Which means that the primary school child would save 16,416 party balloons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere by switching from the car to cycling or walking to school, as these forms of travel do not emit greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. For context, this is similar to the number of balloons seen lifting the house in the movie Up!

A secondary school child would save 34,884 party balloons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere by switching to cycling or walking (3.4 x 27 x 190 x 2 = 34,884).

Your journey to school by bike or on foot would save: [Length of your journey in miles] x 27 x 190 x 2 = ???

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