Nordrhein-Westfalen

AHAUS

With great enthusiasm and energy, the children of the Gottfried von Kappenberg Primary School in Wessum took part in the ‘Children's Miles Campaign’ again this year. Whether on foot, by scooter, by bike or by bus – the main thing was that the car stayed at home. At the end of September, the primary school pupils proudly presented 3,054 green miles to their mayor, Karola Voß, who was rightly delighted that the school had once again shown such commitment this year.

The primary school pupils have already agreed that next year they will once again give their all – and show how easy it can be to protect the climate in everyday life.

We can only add: Keep up the good work!

A lovely photo of the handover to the mayor can be found at 
https://www.stadt-ahaus.de/de/aktuelles/meldungen/1198992.php 

GELSENKIRCHEN

In Gelsenkirchen, six daycare centres collected 2,727 children's miles this year.

At the Franz-Bielefeld-Weg municipal daycare centre, the 45 children not only collected diligently, but also worked with the educational staff to implement some of our building blocks on the topics of mobility, climate protection on the plate and energy saving. They were very happy with the results.

They don't think our break-time games are very suitable for younger children – thank you for your honest feedback. We look forward to receiving suggestions from the facilities, which we will gladly take into account when revising the materials!

An extra games and book library was also set up at the nursery, and a toy day without electrical toys was held. Some children also acted as energy detectives at the nursery. In order to produce less waste, parents have long been asked to bring their own cutlery and crockery to parties at the facility.

Together with the teachers, the children also wrote letters to politicians, summarising what they had discussed and what demands they had developed for political leaders – in short: more green spaces, more public transport, less transport through shorter distances for everyone and everything – we couldn't agree more!

We hope that institutions in Gelsenkirchen will participate again next year. 

GREVEN

The 300 children at St. Josef School in Greven were extremely enthusiastic about the project and collected a total of 4,159 children's miles during their climate action week – thank you very much!Each class designed their own mileage poster and made fantastic patterned footprints. 

KREIS GÜTERSLOH

The district of Gütersloh once again promoted and implemented the Children's Miles campaign with great commitment in its member municipalities. In 2025, a total of 5,735 children from 47 institutions took part. They collected 53,371 miles – what a result, thank you very much!We received further details about the activities of individual institutions, which we have published under the respective place names. 

LOHMAR

At the GGS Lohmar forest school, this year's focus was on climate justice.

To ensure that everyone understood what this means, a team of volunteers from the town provided support, showing the children what fair trade products are and how they can easily recognise them, for example by the fair trade label – would you have known?

NEUENKIRCHEN

The Ludgeri School in Neuenkirchen also took part this year, contributing 2,238 miles with 320 children.

In the summer, there was a ceremony to hand over the children's miles collected to the local mayor, Brüning.

The mileage poster shows some of their wish feet, on which they have written their messages for climate politicians.

As a thank you for their commitment to the global climate, climate protection manager Lukas Müller brought them the five-part children's book series from the Steinfurt district, which he developed in cooperation with energieland2050 e.V.

The fourth volume explains in a child-friendly and playful way how to travel in a climate-friendly manner. It is called ‘Mia macht mobil’ (Mia gets mobile) and also describes how children can collect ‘green miles’ for the climate in the Kindermeilen campaign.

The Steinfurt district's children's book series was created in cooperation with energieland2050 e.V. and is also available as a free download. The other four volumes answer questions about wind and solar energy, what the situation is like in the district with regard to regional and fair trade food, and get to the bottom of the issue of waste and recycling. Further information on this can also be found in our news corner. 

 in unserer Newsecke.

Klimaschutzmanager Lukas Müller, Bürgermeister Willi Brüning, Konrektorin Sandra Lehmkuhl

NORDWALDE

At the AWO Kita Merschkamp nursery in Nordwalde, 60 children in three groups took a close look at climate protection and collected over 1,000 children's miles!

They held a lights-off day to raise awareness of what it means to save energy. When they went to buy bread together at the bakery next door, they thought about transport routes and their impact. They also harvested and processed apples together, learning what it means to eat regionally. Finally, by drawing car traffic on a paper road, they learned that there are different ways to get around.

And last but not least, they made colourful wish feet, which they distributed throughout the nursery so that everyone could see how climate-friendly they had been – thank you for all your hard work! 

REES

The Villa Kunterbunt daycare centre in Rees took part in the Green Mile campaign for the first time this year. For a whole week, the children collected miles together, resulting in a total of 394 Green Miles.

To ensure that scooter and bicycle riders had enough parking space for their climate-friendly vehicles, two car parking spaces were converted into a large bicycle parking area – fantastic! We call this sustainable participation and hope that many others will follow suit! 

SOLINGEN

A total of 362 green, 84 red, and 84 blue Green Footprints were collected at the Löwenzahn daycare center in Solingen. During this campaign, the potential of a future greenhouse project was also discussed, particularly with regard to how plants could be grown and cared for.

In addition, a meeting was held with the children to find out which mode of transport they prefer to use to get to the daycare center. The children created creative crafts, including paper footprints with messages to politicians and ideas for possible climate protection measures.

The discussion about the greenhouse project raised the children's awareness of the importance of plants and their care. It was recognized that such projects can not only promote environmental awareness, but also teach practical skills in nature and gardening. The children showed great interest in the idea, and consideration is being given to how this project can be implemented in practice.

Discussing the preferred means of transportation to the daycare center encouraged the children to think about environmentally friendly alternatives and to critically reflect on their own habits. The collected ideas and messages to politicians illustrate the children's commitment to climate protection and provide valuable impetus for future measures. Keep up the good work!