Nicholas R. Perrone
During this stage the student groups will conduct background research on child health and, in particular, physical activity in school. If the teacher and student group so choose, research may be done on diet and its effect on health and well-being.
An article entitled, “Active Education,” produced by a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, summarized over forty research studies that looked at children’s health, physical activity, and/or academic performance. The article stated that nearly 25 million children and teens are overweight or obese and that physical activity is linked to causing this epidemic. Estimates also indicate that only 4.6 percent of schools provide daily physical activity -- elementary schools were 3.8 percent, middle schools were 7.9 percent, while high schools dropped to 2.1 percent (See Fig. 2).
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The major finding of these studies was that, “Students whose time in [Physical Education] or school-based physical activity were increased maintained or improved their grades and scores on standardized achievement tests, even though they received less classroom instructional time than students in control groups.”
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A study published in
The Physical Educator
, attempts to clarify these previous findings that physical activity directly affects academic achievement in a positive way. The article points out that many studies have revealed a connection between students who participate in physical education on a regular basis and their academic performance; however, the authors of the article cannot justify that physical education directly improves academic achievement of students. They do state that physical education benefits motor skills and health. The article suggests that, “physical education programs should not be advocated as a means to promote academic achievement in students.”
4
In the very same issue of
The Physical Educator
, a separate article argues that physical education and activity should be integrated into other subject areas so that students will get daily physical activity. The author of this article states that, “it has been found that exercise triggers the production and flow of BDNF (a brain-derived neurotrophic factor)…with increased BDNF circulating in the brain, a greater amount of neurons are able to exchange and retain information, enabling individuals to understand, comprehend, remember, and retrieve more information and at a quicker rate.”
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Therefore, if each author’s findings are taken into consideration, one might conclude that mere physical activity is only the first stepping stone to increased academic performance. The answer to improving scores relies upon the integration of physical activity in the presence of learning. This finding is essential for teachers of this unit to convey to students before the problem-finding stage begins.
In this lesson, the teacher should provide computers with Internet access so that students can visit some of the various websites listed in the
Resources
section of this unit. The teacher should save each site as a link in the Internet browser so the students can jump right to the articles to read. Using a
Jig-Saw
strategy, the teacher might divide up the articles so each student group is in charge of reading and presenting one. When the reading time is through, each group would then report back to the class on the information they learned from the article.
