As one of the most outbreaking activities within the whole project, the RIDE&SMILE partnership will do something that nobody has ever been doing within an European project, a symbolic bike trip from Rome to Brussels: a zero-emission 1.600 km ride on two wheels across six countries (Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Belgium) to bring the project results directly to the heart of the EU. In the travel panniers, the cyclists will be carrying the policy recommendations produced by the pupils as a final result of their learning process. These recommendations will be delivered to the EC officers and decision-makers responsible for education and environmental policies.

On July 20th partners met to discuss several points of the web platform including:

1. Protection of sensitive data / privacy issues concerning the involvement of children

– Collective class account managed by the teacher
– Confidentiality of addresses/routes
– Attention should be paid to avoid any forms of discrimination among children

2. Use of smartphone/ICT tools

– Responsible and safe use of ICT tools should be taken in consideration within the planned didactic activities

3. Safety on the road

– Preliminary activities should be organised to provide the pupils with basic notions concerning how to ride a bike safely in the city
– A partnership with the local police could be evaluated

Discussions were also held as to when a ‘Face to face’ meeting would take place, given current Covid restrictions in several partner countries this will be decided at a later date.

Partners in the RIDE & SMILE project have been involved in starting the project online because of travel travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. A series of early discussions have taken place using videoconferencing technologies where partners were able to meet one another, share ideas and discuss the two outputs to be produced from the project:

Output 1 is an interactive web platform that will include an innovative bike competition tool  and learning materials 

Output 2 is a series of educational activities on environmental awareness, teacher training modules addressed to primary schools and tailored to their specific needs.