Take the Stairs Campaign
Take the Stairs Campaign
Join Us for Take the Stairs Campaign 2013
Registration Dates: March 15th – 25th, 2013
Campaign Dates: March 25th, 2013 – April 22nd, 2013*
*Logging of stairs will not be available until Tuesday March 26th. You may log your stairs from Monday March 25th at that time.
The Campaign
The annual Take the Stairs Campaign is brought to you by HSPH’s EcoOpportunity Team – a group of environmentally-conscious Harvard School of Public Health staff, students, and researchers who are committed to lessening our environmental impact here at HSPH. The “Take the Stairs” Campaign is an initiative aimed at increasing physical activity, improving human health (by getting people to take the stairs more often) and reducing our environmental impact (by using the elevator less and thereby using less energy). Each year, hundreds of members of the HSPH community sign up to Campaign to take the stairs as a team, putting their best foot forward, striving to reach the highest of peaks around the world. Read below for information on the mountain we’re climbing this year, promotional posters, and competition rules. Looking forward to seeing you in the stairwells!
The Rules & Campaign Questions
Some of the rules have changed as this Campaign is a work in progress. Please read the updated information regarding rules and prizes carefully!
HOW DO I SIGN UP?
Registration begins on Friday, March 15th, 2013 and ends the night of Sunday, March 24th, 2013. To register your team or to log your stairs please visit: https://webapps.sph.harvard.edu/internal/take-the-stairs/
The Campaign begins the morning of Monday, March 25th and concludes on Earth Day, Monday, April 22nd, 2013.
Your team must be signed up after the registration has closed, so be sure to get your teams ready to go and registered BEFORE the closing!!
Once you have a team of 4 or 5 organized, select one team member to register the team. You must have 4 or 5 members total to register, the system will not accept partial teams.
Teams may include staff, students and faculty from multiple HSPH departments, provided that all members have an official Harvard email address and an HUID. All team members need to be assigned when registering, incomplete teams will not be accepted.
HOW DO I KEEP TRACK OF MY FLIGHTS AND MY TEAM’S PROGRESS?
Each team member is responsible for logging onto the PIN-enabled system and entering their individual flights climbed up. Stairs down do not count. For example (one flight up = one floor, for example if you go from Floor 1 to Floor 4, that’s 3 flights).
This optional Take the Stairs tracker may help you track your stairs in between updates.
The Teams with the most progress are displayed on the bar chart of the stair logging screen.
WHAT COUNTS AS A FLIGHT?
Two types of movement count for the Campaign. Flights of stairs climbed up and walking round trip between the HSPH main campus and either Landmark or 90 Smith St. Please take the stairs down wherever possible. Taking the elevator down defeats the purpose of the Campaign.
For stairs, going up one floor counts as one flight. For example, via the stairs, going from Kresge 1st floor to Kresge 5th floor and back the 1st floor of Kresge would count as 4 flights.
For Landmark, a walking round trip to the main campus counts for 15 flights of stairs. And no, the shuttle does NOT count!
For 90 Smith St, a walking round trip to the main campus counts for 5 flights of stairs.
IS THERE A LIMIT ON HOW MANY FLIGHTS I CAN ENTER?
There is no limit to the number of stairs you can log per day. While we know that some of you may go on extreme stair climbing missions for this Campaign, we encourage teams to remember the focus of the Campaign is a sustained behavioral change that improves health and reduces electrical consumption. Hopefully it goes without saying that this is not a race!
Remember there is no winner and only you and your team can see your flights. Please be honest when entering flights, it is for your health.
We appreciate everyone’s participation, and encourage everyone to have fun and to motivate both your teammates and non-teammates alike!
STILL HAVE QUESTIONS?
Contact Eco-Opportunity by email: ecoop@hsph.harvard.edu
Prizes
For those who participate and finish the climb there will be a raffle for prizes. There will a small appreciation gift all participants. Prizes and appreciation gifts will be distributed only at the HSPH Sustainability Fair in the Kresge Cafeteria Wednesday 4/24/2013, 11:30 AM-1:30 PM.
Where are we hiking in 2013?
Mount Elbrus, 18,510 feet, is a dormant volcano located in Russia in the western Caucasus mountain range and is the highest mountain in Europe. The mountain is perpetually snow-covered with an icecap and 22 glaciers. Three major rivers—Baksan, Malka, and Kuban—arise from the glaciers. Finally it is considered one of the world’s most deadly peaks with a high ratio of climber deaths to climbers. In 2004, 48 climbers and skiers perished on the mountain. With each upstairs flight counting for 15 vertical feet, that’s a mere 1,234 flights of stairs to climb between you and your favorite colleagues/workout buddies.
Want to know where the closest or furthest stairs are?
Over the years, we’ve had people participate in this competition and come to our team, or coworkers and say, “where are the stairs in my building?” or “I didn’t even know there were stairs there!”. We’ve done some work to lay out a campus map highlighting where all the main stairwells are located. Click here for a larger PDF, and feel free to share with others, or even print it for your stairwell!
