Calming traffic near schools, creating segregated bike lanes and doing outdoor learning activities are some of the recommendations of the Catalan Pediatric Society to improve school environments.
The scientific society has drawn up a decalogue to demand that school environments be safer and healthier, at a time when thousands of students are exposed daily to pollution from cars and risks from road traffic.
In this sense, the organization asks to calm traffic in school environments, prioritizing pedestrianization and restricting motorized traffic.
It also demands a general change towards the "City 30" model to reduce speed to 30 kilometers per hour throughout the urban space, something that in Barcelona only occurs in areas close to schools.
Likewise, pediatricians demand wide and segregated school paths and bicycle lanes to encourage active school mobility, by bicycle, rollerblades or on foot, and for minors to be able to reach and return from the educational center autonomously and safely.
Administrations should also prioritize, according to pediatricians, proximity to the school as a basic criterion, to reduce the number of daily motorized trips.
Likewise, the Catalan Society of Pediatrics calls for replacing car parking on the streets adjacent to educational centers with parking spaces for bicycles and scooters, as well as waiting, meeting and play areas in public spaces.
In classrooms, pediatricians consider that air quality and acoustic sensors should be installed in classrooms as a pedagogical and health improvement tool, based on the parameters of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Another measure by pediatricians is to naturalize school playgrounds and environments with trees and plants that provide shade, freshness and color, so that they also serve as refuges from high temperatures and are adapted to the climate crisis.
It is also recommended that teachers organize teaching and non-teaching activities outdoors whenever possible.
In the fight against smoking, pediatricians call for measures to avoid exposure to environmental tobacco smoke in the immediate surroundings of educational centers and prevent the consumption of cigarettes, alcohol and other drugs before adolescence.
Other measures are to establish school environmental health plans for each center, with the participation of the entire educational community, and to include experts and those affected in decisions regarding mobility and safe and healthy school environments.
