Healthy Campus Campaign
Project Activities
Nutrition
The project team has worked to promote healthy eating and to increase healthy food choices on campus. Activities include nutrition tours of dining hall facilities and signage promoting healthy eating in South and Fox dining halls. A new physical activity and eating right brochure (pdf) was developed in partnership with Healthy Campus Campaign and Aramark. The brochure includes guidelines for nutrition, a map of the campus and dining halls, walking and biking routes. You can also check out the UMass Lowell Campus Dish website.
Physical Activity
The project team has conducted yearly walk-ability and bike-ability surveys to assess how easy or difficult it is to walk and bike around the campus. To encourage biking around campus, a new Bike Share Program (Rec-Cycles) began in the Spring of 2007. Rec-Cycles operates spring to fall with bikes available for check out at the Campus Recreation Center.
The Healthy Campus Campaign conducted with ongoing assessment using the Centers for Disease Control Walkability Audit Tool(pdf). The main objective of the Walkability Audit Tool was to assess how easy or difficult it is to walk around the UMass Lowell campus. Results from the 2007 Walkability Report (pdf) show that the UMass Lowell campus is a moderately walkable community.
The main objective of the Bike-ability Survey (doc) was to assess how easy or difficult it is to bike around the UMass Lowell campus. The survey quantified the number and location of bike racks, the presence of bikes on campus, as well as determined the bike-ability of the University's campus community to ultimately promote the use of bikes.
In addition sustainable changes and improvements in the campus environment have been implemented, including the use of artwork to improve the aesthetics of campus stairwells and increase stair well usage. Collaboration with the Teen Art Group at the Revolving Museum in Lowell resulted in strengthening partnerships, informing teens about increasing physical activity and improved nutrition. Stair usage has been tracked following the stairwell improvements.
In collaboration with the Greater Lowell Health Alliance, a Lowell Walks map (pdf) was developed to encourage walking in and around Lowell. Walking between campuses is a great opportunity to increase physical activity, reduce the carbon footprint, reduce traffic and parking congestion.
Health Promotion
Two seniors in Community Health Education were partnered with the Healthy Campus Campaign for a service-learning health promotion project. The community health service-learning project Health Shots, were developed to effectively promote health on UMass Lowell's campus through the use of peer education and technology.
Health Shots Links:
- Fitness 101
- Disease Awareness
- Avoiding the Freshman 15
- Alcohol Awareness