Length:

60 minutes

Objective:

Staying active is an important part of your overall health. This key is to find activities that both raise your heart rate and that you enjoy doing. It is best to find a balance of aerobic activities for a healthy heart, strength training for strong muscles and bones, and activities that improve your flexibility to reduce injury.

Additional links:

scigirlsconnect.org/page/workinitout

fit.webmd.com/kids/move/article/exercise-types and girlshealth.gov/fitness/exercise/index.cfm

National Health Education Standards

1.5.1 ( Grades: 3-5 ): Describe the relationship between healthy behaviors and personal health.

1.8.1 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Analyze the relationship between healthy behaviors and personal health.

1.8.3 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Analyze how the environment affects personal health.

1.8.4 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Describe how family history can affect personal health.

1.8.5 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Describe ways to reduce or prevent injuries and other adolescent health problems.

1.8.7 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Describe the benefits of and barriers to practicing healthy behaviors.

2.5.1 ( Grades: 3-5 ): Describe how the family influences personal health practices and behaviors.

2.5.2 ( Grades: 3-5 ): Identify the influence of culture on health practices and behaviors.

2.5.3 ( Grades: 3-5 ): Identify how peers can influence healthy and unhealthy behaviors.

2.5.4 ( Grades: 3-5 ): Describe how the school and community can support personal health practices and behaviors.

2.5.5 ( Grades: 3-5 ): Explain how media influences thoughts, feelings, and health behaviors.

2.5.6 ( Grades: 3-5 ): Describe ways that technology can influence personal health.

2.8.2 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Describe the influence of culture on health beliefs, practices and behaviors.

2.8.3 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Describe how peers influence healthy and unhealthy behaviors.

2.8.4 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Analyze how the school and community can affect personal health practices and behaviors.

2.8.5 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Analyze how messages from media influence health behaviors.

2.8.6 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Analyze the influence of technology on personal and family health.

2.8.7 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Explain how the perceptions of norms influence healthy and unhealthy behaviors.

2.8.8 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Explain the influence of personal values and beliefs on individual health practices and behaviors.

2.8.9 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Describe how some health risk behaviors can influence the likelihood of engaging in unhealthy behaviors.

4.5.4 ( Grades: 3-5 ): Demonstrate how to ask for assistance to enhance personal health.

4.8.4 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Demonstrate how to ask for assistance to enhance the health of self and others.

6.8.1 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Assess personal health practices.

6.8.2 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Develop a goal to adopt, maintain, or improve a personal health practice.

7.5.1 ( Grades: 3-5 ): Identify responsible personal health behaviors.

7.5.2 ( Grades: 3-5 ): Demonstrate a variety of healthy practices and behaviors to maintain or improve personal health.

7.5.3 ( Grades: 3-5 ): Demonstrate a variety of behaviors that avoid or reduce health risks.

7.8.1 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Explain the importance of assuming responsibility for personal health behaviors.

7.8.2 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Demonstrate healthy practices and behaviors that will maintain or improve the health of self and others.

7.8.3 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Demonstrate behaviors that avoid or reduce health risks to self and others.

8.5.2 ( Grades: 3-5 ): Encourage others to make positive health choices.

8.8.1 ( Grades: 6-8 ): State a health enhancing position on a topic and support it with accurate information.

8.8.2 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Demonstrate how to influence and support others to make positive health choices.

Benchmarks for Science Literacy

12A/M2 ( Grades: 6-8 ): Hypotheses are valuable, even if they turn out not to be true, if they lead to fruitful investigations.

1B/E1 ( Grades: 3-5 ): Scientific investigations may take many different forms, including observing what things are like or what is happening somewhere, collecting specimens for analysis, and doing experiments.

1B/M1b ( Grades: 6-8 ): Scientific investigations usually involve the collection of relevant data, the use of logical reasoning, and the application of imagination in devising hypotheses and explanations to make sense of the collected data.

NSTA National Science Education Standards

A.1.7.a ( Grades: 5-8 ): With practice, students should become competent at communicating experimental methods, following instructions, describing observations, summarizing the results of other groups, and telling other students about investigations and explanations.

A.2.3 ( Grades: 5-8 ): Mathematics is important in all aspects of scientific inquiry.

Materials:

Large room or outdoor space, supplies for each activity (as needed)

For each pair group: clipboards, stopwatch, pencil and paper and water for staying hydrated

Notes:

Prepare three stations, each with a different activity, with room for several pairs to try each activity at the same time. Include low impact activities for those students that need them.Use activity time to discuss bias. How can the students make sure that their opinion of the activity is not being influenced by their peers?

Vocabulary:

Aerobic exercise, strength training, flexibility

Instruction:

1.Doctors recommend that students aged 8-13 get 60 minutes of activity 5 days a week. Develop a class list of all the physical activities that they enjoy.

2.Introduce Aerobic exercise (AKA cardio), strength training (building muscles), and flexibility (to prevent injury and helps increase performance).

3.Have students separate the list into categories of aerobic exercise, strength training and flexibility.

4.Discuss how some activities fit more than one category. How could we set up an experiment to test and see what activities are the hardest, but are also the most fun to do?

5.Introduce the three previously set up activities. Have students seperate into small groups of no more than 3-4 students and develop a way to answer our question.

a.Difficulty measurement. Students can measure an activity level by testing their ability to sing or talk. If they can sing while doing it without getting out of breath, the activity is easy. If they find it hard to have a normal conversation, the activity is very difficult. Create a scale to compare the different activities.

b.Likeability.Likeability can be measured on a 5-point scale with the students agreeing on descriptors to maintain consistency.

c.Length of time. Students should perform all activities for the same length of time to be able to compare them accurately. (Generally about 10minutes per activity is plenty of time.

6. Have students make a prediction before starting each activity. Test each one by rotating through stations. Remind students to take a few minutes before moving to the next station to record their difficulty and likeability measurements.

7. Once all students have collected their data, have students organize their data into a graph that allows them to find the relationship between likeability and difficulty of an activity. Allow for each group to share their results, was there a trend in our data? Were some activities really popular and really difficult? What characteristics of these activities are most similar to the physical activities they brainstormed in the beginning?

References: http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/scigirls/?topic_id=797