Polar Walk 2015 was another fun event for schools in Moscow, Idaho. Unlike last year’s freeze, this year proved balmy and warm for February in Moscow, Idaho. 9 schools participated including Moscow High School for their first time ever! Totals for the event include: 1156 elementary and middle school students, 66 U of I volunteers, 32 stuffed polar bears hidden, 9 real polar bears were symbolically adopted from Polar Bears International! All the total numbers for each school are at the bottom of this post. 
Overall, we did some things the same as years past, and some things differently this year. Here’s the overview… Same:
- Hot chocolate and cups were provided by SR2S and served to all participating students and parents.
- All students who actively traveled to school (ie. biked, bused, skateboarded) or bused to school AND did some sort of physical activity before the bell, were counted for the total seen below.
- Stuffed polar bears were hidden on school campuses. Here’s a picture of all 32 of the bears that were given distributed out to Moscow Schools
Different:
- Instead of giving out mementos/incentives to each student that probably would have ended up in the landfill, we chose to encourage students by pledging $0.50 per student participant towards adopting a real polar bear (or two) for each school through Polar Bears International. Students were very excited at the idea and it went well with our theme of “Walk for the polar bears” this year. The total money raised was enough for 9 polar bears to be adopted by Moscow schools!
- SR2S printed out “Polar Walk Passports” for 4 schools to have students stamp each arctic animal picture as they did laps around their school
- SR2S provided 6 polar bear hats to the 4 Middle Schools in Moscow. We thought they’d like these more than finding stuffed polar bears.
Here are the final numbers for the event.
| Schools | Student Participants | Money donated by SR2S | Money donated by students | Total $ raised to adopt from PBI | PBI level of adoption | Volunteer hours | Total students in each school | Percentage participated | Walking School Buses | |
| 1 | Moscow Charter | 109 | $54.50 | $28.03 | $82.53 | Polar Bear | 9 | 176 | 62% | 1 |
| 2 | Lena Whitmore | 220 | $110.00 | $0.00 | $110.00 | Mom and Cub | 11 | 275 | 80% | 1 |
| 3 | West Park | 190 | $95.00 | $5.00 | $100.00 | Mom and Cub | 8 | 218 | 87% | 1 |
| 4 | PPSEL | 87 | $43.50 | $15.50 | $59.00 | Cub | 6 | 170 | 51% | 3 |
| 5 | McDonald | 200 | $100.00 | $0.00 | $100.00 | Mom and Cub | 11 | 332 | 60% | 1 |
| 6 | St. Mary’s | 69 | $34.50 | $3.00 | $37.50 | Arctic Adoption | 6 | 132 | 52% | 1 |
| 7 | Moscow Middle School | 281 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | N/A | 15 | 518 | 54% | 0 |
| 8 | Russell | N/A | 0 | 0 | 0 | N/A | N/A | n/a | 0% | 0 |
| 9 | Moscow High School | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 0 | ||
| Totals: | 1156 | $437.50 | $51.53 | $489.03 | 9 bears! | 66 | 1821 | 63% | 8 | |
| Notes: | ||||||||||
| Russell didn’t participate because of a security scare 2 days before polar walk | ||||||||||
| There was no way to count participants at Moscow High School | ||||||||||
| Student counts on iPads from the morning at the Middle School are below | ||||||||||
| Bike – 31 | 31 | |||||||||
| Walkers – 250 | 250 | |||||||||
| Bus – 179 | 179 | |||||||||
| Cars – 147 | 147 | |||||||||
| MMS Participant total | 281 | |||||||||
| Polar Bears International is where our pledged money will be donated to. Each elementary school will “adopt a polar bear, or two” depending on their donation level. https://www.polarbearsinternational.org/adopt | ||||||||||
And here are some fun pictures: Participants were counted if they walked, biked or bused (AND did some sort of physical activity before the bell) 
Lots of hot chocolate was enjoyed by Middle School and Elementary school students 
Some schools had students stamp their “Polar Walk passports” each time they ran a lap around their school 
Hot chocolate was given out to all participants (and scarves were given to the first 40 students at Moscow Charter School) 
9 Walking School Buses headed to schools around town 
THANK YOU to all who participated, especially each Parent Leader who made Polar Walk a success at each school!
