Students at a Des Moines grade school just finished a “walk to New York,” though they never left the school grounds. 291 students and forty adults walked, ran, and even skipped for quarter-mile laps around the track at Howe Elementary School. Ten-year-old Theo Burke is one whose steps were added to the count till the map in the cafeteria showed they’d reached the Big Apple.Principal John Johnson says he made the walk part of math classes, so students would figure up their distance and the time to get to New York. And he says teachers turned it into a geography lesson, too. One thing they haven’t done, says Johnson, is talk a lot about terrorism.They’re providing memories for the children, so when in twenty years they remember it, they’ll know they were part of a solution instead of just remembering how terrible it was. Eleven-year-old Carissa Shepard says she’s glad to do the walk, but hasn’t talked about the attacks much with her parents.Gym teacher John Rice came up with the idea of walking to New York around the school track, as the school looked for ways to celebrate “National Walk to School day.”He says it’s a way the kids could show they care, and giving up recess time is one way they can contribute. Following their totals on a map, the kids watched their “walk” take them as far as Chicago last Thursday, Indiana by Friday, Pennsylvania on Monday…and Tuesday the Big Apple.
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