Backpacker

Like adorable turtles, their little limbs poking out from under outsized shells, kids shuffle their ways to school bearing on their shoulders ever-heavier backpacks. Even high schoolers have to bend forward beneath books and binders to cart their cargo to and from school. They’re burdensome (and can be goofy-looking), but are they dangerous? Yes, say […]

Every morning, more than 79 million students across the United States cram multiple textbooks, school supplies, lunches, gym clothes and electronics into backpacks and journey off to class. Researchers report that backpacks can weigh more than 40 percent of a child’s body weight. Imagine a 60-pound child carrying a backpack that weighs 24 pounds. Heavy […]

For today’s kids, it must be difficult to imagine a time before backpacks. They’re ubiquitous in classrooms and on school buses around the country and have been for decades. But as late as the 1960s, they weren’t widely available. Back then, the simple act of carrying stuff to and from school was difficult. “Students had […]