Health Class and Physical Education Class become ONE
Recently I was introduced to http://www.mypyramid.gov/kids/kids_game.html a fun and educational game targeted for youngsters to help learn healthy eating habits. The object was to fuel a space ship with enough fuel for grains, vegetables, fruits, milk, and meats/beans so it could make it to the destination planet power. You could select different foods for breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner to fill up the fuel tank. You have to be careful not to overload the fuel tank. Then the last part was to charge the battery by selecting 60 minutes of physical activity.
The idea of combining health and physical education is early elementary is something that I have been considering as of lately. I know that as a nation we have done a miserable job at fulfilling the requirements set forth in Healthy People 2010. My girlfriend is in a two year nursing program and recently told me of a discussion that her class had suggesting that health and importance of eating properly is something that should be introduced into the public schools. Rather than changing unhealthy lifestyles at an older age, students should learn proper eating and lifestyles at an early age. As the children grow they can continue to keep their lifestyles and thus be more educated and more fit to make proper decisions about their health. My idea as future Phys Ed teacher would be to combine health topics into the gymnasium. As a result I have created a 35 minute lesson that could be used to help elementary children learn about the food pyramid but at the same time receive fitness from the physical education class itself. I feel that this could be a very important route to take because the rate of obesity as a population as a whole and especially children have greatly increased in the recent decades. To help slow down and ultimately decrease the number it is going to take time. However, I feel that this niche will help my students in my district where I land a job not only as a Physical Educator but as a health educator as well.
Take a look at my ideas below
Below are pictures of me playing the game. To be fair I am not in my best appearance because I am still recovering from mono.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteLooks good but you didn;t tell me about the game itself and the links to the docs don't work.