HSBC Clean Air Achievers

Inspiring Youth to Get Active for the Environment, a curriculum based program involving Canada’s top athletes

The Clean Air Achievers program (CAA) focuses on motivating youth to apply lessons learned in-class - related to air quality, climate change, health and transportation - to personal, community and environmental challenges.  CAA is a program that was created to help fulfill the mission of the non-profit organization Clean Air Champions (CAC); to improve air quality by working with respected athletes to motivate and educate Canadians to adopt practices and lifestyles that enhance both environmental and personal health.  The Clean Air Achievers program provides the means to relay why Clean Air Champions believe action on these issues is important - and what type of action can be taken.  The CAC message is delivered through a dynamic presentation given by Canadian National Team, Paralympic, and Olympic athletes.  Athletes remain involved in the program and return to celebrate the class results of the program.

Goals

• Educate youth in grades 7, 8 and 9 about the links between environmental and health issues
• Inspire students to use active transportation to reduce air pollution and improve their personal health
• Produce measurable results that demonstrate an increase in physical activity levels of youth (through active transportation), and show a reduction in their (and their families’) green house gas emissions (primarily transportation related)
• Employ Canada’s national team athletes, Olympians and Paralympians as program educators and motivators.

Curriculum support

The CAA subject units addressed include:

• Science (ecosystems and climate change);
• Health (physical activity, impact of air pollution, etc.);
• Transportation and technology;
• Social sciences (communities, working with family, awareness of local and global issues)
• Geography (mapping); and
• Mathematics (calculating distances, simple formulas).

Location