Ripley County Middle Schools Participate In Great STEM Bike Ride

Over the course of six days, riders traveled a combined 650 miles and engaged in STEM learning.

Students at Milan Middle School taking part in the Great STEM Bike Ride. Photo provided. 

(Ripley County, Ind.) - The Great STEM Bike Ride kicked-off in Ripley County last week to engage students in a physical activity and provide a STEM learning opportunity. Nine13sports, a nonprofit organization that teaches students about the power of a bicycle, visited each middle school in Ripley County and engaged middle school students through their Kids Riding Bikes program.

Nine13sports’ Kids Riding Bikes program provided students with a day-long bike riding experience via an interactive indoor bicycling simulator that utilized technology to gamify the experience of riding a bicycle. Students were able to see real-time statistics showing data related to their speed, power output, distance, and time, while learning how a bicycle is designed and manufactured.

“Bringing Kids Riding Bikes to Ripley County Middle Schools was a wonderful way to kick off The Great STEM Bike Ride. It was astonishing to see Nine13sports visit all the schools (Batesville Middle School, Jac-Cen-Del Jr./Sr. High School, Milan Middle School, South Ripley Junior High School, St. Louis Catholic School, and St. Nicholas School) over the course of a week and a half,” stated Clarice Patterson, Director of Genesis: Pathways to Success. Patterson further noted, “The team at Nine13sports brought such a positive and influential energy to the program that it left kids and adults feeling enthusiastic and knowledgeable about bicycles.”

Over the course of six days, 903 students from Ripley County middle schools were able to participate in Kids Riding Bikes. Collectively, those riders biked approximately 650 miles, which is enough to travel from Indianapolis to Chicago over 3.5 times.

Kids Riding Bikes was the launch event for The Great STEM Bike Ride and is now followed with an invitation to families in Ripley County to get outside and bike ridge together, post selfies on social media with the hashtags #STEMBikeRide and #KidsRidingBikes, and celebrate the beauty of the natural environment that surrounds Ripley County. Additional programs are in the works to further this initiative.

To learn more information about The Great STEM Bike Ride, please contact Clarice Patterson by emailing at cpatterson@genesisp2s.org, calling 812-933-1098, or stopping by our office at 13 E. George Street, Suite B, Batesville, IN, 47006.