ErieWalks, an eight-week walking competition among downtown Erie employers, will begin April 8.
Anyone who is employed downtown is encouraged to form a team. The Downtown YMCA won the 2012 ErieWalks competition by having its employees walk at least 30 minutes a day 6.22 days a week.
Sponsored by the Erie County Department of Health and several community agencies, ErieWalks combines physical activity with friendly competition, peer support and education to encourage participants to develop the habit of walking, or participating in some other form of aerobic exercise for 30 minutes a day.
By walking just 30 minutes a day, you'll reap the rewards of an active lifestyle -- increased energy, improved weight management, enhanced well-being and reduced risk for chronic diseases.
Mental health first aid course offered
Warren-based Northwest Health Connections now offers mental health first aid, an eight-hour course that educates people about the warning signs of mental-health problems and teaches them how to help a person in crisis.
The course is recommended for first responders, law-enforcement officials, teachers, coaches and family members. The cost is $30 per student.
Trainers will travel to an arranged site in Erie, Warren, Forest, Cameron, Elk, McKean, Potter, Clearfield or Jefferson counties.
For more information, call (814) 728-9400.
Early number sense plays role in later math skills
We know a lot about how babies learn to talk, and youngsters learn to read. Now scientists are unraveling the earliest building blocks of math -- and what children know about numbers as they begin first grade seems to play a big role in how well they do everyday calculations later on.
The findings have specialists considering steps that parents might take to spur math abilities, just like they do to try to raise a good reader.
This isn't only about trying to improve the nation's math scores and attract kids to become engineers. It's far more basic.
Consider: How rapidly can you calculate a tip? Do the fractions to double a recipe? Know how many quarters and dimes the cashier should hand back as your change?
About 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. lacks the math competence expected of a middle-schooler, meaning they have trouble with those ordinary tasks.
-- from staff and wire reports