The students of the 6th grade at a primary school in Hersonissos, Greece worked to address obstacles to healthy choices and physical activity in their community. They conducted a field study to identify issues around the school that hindered walking and cycling. The students then discussed the problems, how they were created, who could fix them, and how they could help. They created a presentation and invited local authorities and parents to discuss solutions. The meeting allowed students to advocate for improved facilities and time for physical activity. They agreed some issues could be solved locally with community help, while others required greater resources and political will. The students created a chart summarizing what they learned to share.

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Making healthy choices easy choices
By the students of the 6th
Grade – 1st
Primary School of Hersonissos
We have chosen to work out the issue with our students of the sixth grade in the frame of their
subject "Social and Civil Education". We tried to do an interdisciplinary approach with the
collaboration of class teacher Ms. Kadi Eva, Music teacher Mrs. Charalabopoulou Vaso,
Informatics teacher Mr. Haniotakis Ioannis and Physical Activity teacher Mr. Papadakis.
First of all we had to clarify the basic terms and the aim:
“HEALTH is the state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence
of disease or infirmity”. (WHO)
“HEALTH PROMOTION is the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve,
their health. To reach a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, an individual or
group must be able to identify and to realize aspirations, to satisfy needs, and to change or cope with
the environment”. (WHO)
In other words, health promotion requires the identification of obstacles to the adoption of healthy
public policies in non-health sectors, and ways of removing them, or simply:
How to make healthy choices easy choices
We started with a field study, an autopsy, of the obstacles around the school that do not facilitate
the movement of pedestrians and cyclists, as well as the shortcomings and problems in play grounds in
the neighborhood (P 1.2.3)
P1. Oups…! P2. Obviously we need both, hard work and laugh brakes

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P.3 Boy's sad face tells everything....
Then we discussed:
 The problems/obstacles
 How are they created?
 Who can fix them?
 How can we help?
Bearing in mind that active citizen:
 DO NOT ONLY AND ALWAYS GRUBLE
 RECOGNIZE THEIR RESPONSIBITIES
 ASK OTHERS TO TAKE THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES TOO
 TRY TO FIND REALISTIC, FEASIBLE SOLUTIONS FOR PROGRESS
 TAKE PART, ACCORDING TO THEIR STRENGTH, IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE
SOLUTIONS

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P4. It might look confusing but so are problems until you start solving them.
During our PTE classes we made a power point presentation.
Finally, when we were ready, we invited local authorities and representatives of parents association
to present our work and discuss with them.
It was a conference between responsible, active citizens. (P 5.6.7)
P5.6 Democracy

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P7. A nice meaningful song as a closure was necessary to artistically emphasize our arguments.
During the meeting we had the chance to claim our right for facilities and time for physical activity,
to ask for changes and improvements from those who can do them, and of course to admit our own
responsibilities.
About the issues we raised we agreed that:
 We live in a blessed beautiful place, which, however, has its glitches, and needs care of those
who love him.
 Some of them can be solved locally with our help (e.g. school and neighborhood play grounds),
 Some others are difficult to be solved (e.g. there is no provision in the neighborhood for
pedestrian areas and bicycle lanes) and need time, money and of course, as always, will.
 And some others (funding infrastructures, PE classes etc) are beyond the reach of local
authorities and need political claiming and pressure.
Everything we learned and discussed is in the following chart.
It is not complete of course but it is an honest effort.
We suggest that you study it from the right (aim) to the left (policy and decision makers)
We wish to thank Deputy Major Mr. Fragiadakis, Civil Engineer Mr. Kasapakis, and the Presidents of the 2 School
Boards Mrs. Bageri and Mrs. Moudraki for their valuable support.

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