June 22nd, 2010
An innovative school is having their students exercise on spinning bikes that add electricity to the power grid.
Not only can the students convert their energy into electricity, Nemec said, but this effort also reinforces first lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign to combat obesity.
Read the article here.
The students study energy sources, like wind power and clean versus dirty power, and the muscles used to exercise. They use math to graph their miles and the watts they’re generating.
The above quote from the article is very interesting. If the students are using math to graph their miles and watts, it seems that this is also an excellent opportunity to teach the principle of progressive overload. Since physical education is often taught outdoors, it is difficult to measure exercise intensity. Since these bikes measure the students’ power output, teaching students how to provide a stimulus through progressive overload is key. The mathematics, while stressed in this article, is really only the vehicle to allow students to access this important concept.
Tags: content standards, exercise, metrics, physical activity, physical education, Technology
Posted in Body Composition, Lesson Ideas, Miscellaneous, Obesity, Technology, elementary physical education | No Comments »
March 30th, 2010
I received a press release today pertaining to the Fit Kids Act. This legislation is meant to modify No Child Left Behind and is asking for quality physical education. Readers of this blog will be very interested in this information. Click here for the press release.
Tags: Fit Kids Act, No Child Left Behind, Obesity, PEP Grant, physical education
Posted in Policy, elementary physical education | No Comments »
February 6th, 2010
Receiving credit for physical education through ROTC or marching band has been a hot topic in California lately.
Here is an interesting article from the Orlando Sentinel on opting out of physical education. Just the title alone caught my attention. It is titled “Tens of thousands of Florida kids opt out of gym class.” It reminds me of when a student asks me if we have gym today. My response is usually something like this, “No, we have physical education class today. The gym is a building.”
Opting out of physical education seems like a backward trend. Lets hope these students get good jobs some day. They’ll need some money to hire personal trainers when they find they don’t have the tools to stay healthy and fit.
A colleague of mine once had the following quote in a PowerPoint. It makes so much sense.
“In the great work of education, our physical condition, if not the first step in point of importance, is the first order of time. On the broad band and firm foundation of health alone, can the loftiest and most enduring structure of intellect be reared.” — Horace Mann
Tags: Opting out of PE, physical education
Posted in Health-care reform, Miscellaneous, Policy | No Comments »
January 3rd, 2010
By John Kruse
Here’s an article a friend recommended on exercise and feeling gloomy. Seems like good reading for the middle of winter.
Read this book review by Jen Mettler for more on exercise and the brain.
Tags: exercise, John Ratey, mental health, Spark
Posted in Miscellaneous | No Comments »
December 31st, 2009
By John Kruse
It seems like I keep hearing stories from physical education teachers and their knee issues. Here’s an interesting article about exercise and knees.
Click here for article.
Tags: Knees, running, Sports Medicine, Teachers
Posted in Miscellaneous | No Comments »
December 26th, 2009
The FitMet BMI calculator has been fixed. The CDC growth charts now appear as a PDF file that you can print. It is best to run the calculator from either the Firefox or Google Chrome web browsers.
FitMet is looking to improve on this simple calculator. Please feel free to leave a comment here if you have a suggestion.
Thanks to the participants at Project NorthReach who discovered the broken links.
Tags: BMI calculator, Body Mass Index, boys vs girls, CDC BMI growth charts, Firefox, Google Chrome, Google Gadget, physical education, Technology, web browsers
Posted in Body Composition, Miscellaneous, Technology | No Comments »
November 21st, 2009
Congratulations to FitMet contributor Jennifer Mettler. She received word yesterday that she has achieved National Board Certification in physical education.
National Board Certification certificate areas, which are based on the NBPTS standards, are designed to help candidates demonstrate the knowledge, skills, dispositions and commitments of accomplished teachers.
This is the second major achievement for Jennifer this year. In July, she was awareded the Southern District CAPHERD Teacher of the Year award.
Posted in Miscellaneous | No Comments »
November 9th, 2009
It has been brought to our attention that the FitMet Body Bass Index Calculator is currently not working on the both Safari and Microsoft Explore web browsers. Currently, the calculator does work with Firefox. Also, the Centers for Disease Control links for the male and female BMI growth charts are broken as well. We will find the new links for the CDC Growth charts and fix both problems. FitMet apologizes for any inconvenience this may have caused you in you classrooms.
Please check in periodically. We will let you know when these issues have been resolved.
Posted in Body Composition, Fitness Testing, Miscellaneous, Poduct Reviews, Technology | No Comments »
October 19th, 2009
By Matthew Bassett
http://www.anatomyarcade.com/
While looking at the NASPE November toolbox for physical education teachers, I found a web site that has games and videos for kids about human anatomy. I started looking around and playing some of the games they have on their web site. You can pick different systems of the body. Each section has a wide variety of activities that can be used to review or learn content about these systems. They have activities like word searches, crossword puzzles, matching games and videos about the body systems.
After looking around, I realized that these games can be used for physical education classes. I started thinking about third grade, California content standard 4.11. Students are required to name and locate the major muscles of the body. This web site could be a great tool for students to review and memorize the major muscles of the body. It could also be helpful to teach other grade levels on topics like how the muscles move the bones to help us to be physically active. You could have lessons on how the cardiovascular system and the respiratory system both contribute to exercise.
Disclaimer:
The site is free but the biggest drawback is that it has a lot of ads. The ads help pay for the site so you will see video ads before starting the games. You will also see ads selling specific items all around the web site. I found a few ads that may not be suitable for students. You can purchase a site license for the games and this will allow you to download the games without any ads.
The site itself may be a little complicated for younger students. I think third graders would be the best age to start students working on this web page. Personally, will not use the free site since the ads are questionable. I guess I will add another grant proposal to my to-do list.
Posted in Miscellaneous, elementary physical education | No Comments »
October 17th, 2009
By John Kruse
I’ve recently advocated that more quality physical education can help in the prevention of excessive health care costs. Today, I found an interview with Newt Gingrich. In it, he explains the importance of physical education, nutrition and physical activity in attempting to curb health care costs.
Q: What should be the approach on health care?
A: I think you need a totally new approach. I think you need to start with the individual, you’ve got to focus on individual responsibility, on wellness, on early testing, on learning to manage chronic diseases. You have to focus on fundamental change.
We just got into a little argument in upstate New York on a school district that was going to block kids from riding their bicycle or walking (to school.) We wrote a letter and got in the middle of it and said this is exactly wrong, you want kids to walk to school, you want kids to ride their bikes to school. You want to have K through 12 physical education, you want to rethink the school lunch program and the school breakfast program so that it’s good food for diabetics.
Then you have to look at the delivery systems. You have two hospitals (in Wheeling.) You need to apply the Toyota production system model, the work of Drucker … the best systems in America are just amazingly effective and much less expensive. We have to move to that. We can’t afford to pay unnecessarily because we have to be able to compete with China and India and you cannot do that if you start out every morning with a multi-billion dollar burden.
Read the rest of the interview here. Unfortuntely, the above quote is the extent of the interview having to do with physical education and health care. In any case, its good to see a politician advocating for what we do.
Tags: health care costs, physical education, prevention
Posted in Health-care reform, Policy | 1 Comment »