A Healthy Heart
Sherri Johns
6th grade/Physical Education and Health
Links to Files Associated with This Lesson
Content Area Objectives Addressed:
1. Cardiovascular Fitness
Technology Objectives Addressed:
1. Enter information into spreadsheet
2. Create simple spreadsheet for graphing
3. Interpret data from a spreadsheet
What was the process that your students went through to complete this lesson?
First we went over some spreadsheet skills using the TVator in our classroom. Then we practiced those skills with an M&M activity. They had to sort and count their M&M’s and enter their data along with 4 other students’ data into a student created spreadsheet. Then they did some calculations and made a graph with the spreadsheet. A professor from BSU came and taught them all about the heart, what its purpose is and how it works. We taught them how to take their heart rate and what that tells them. We also taught them the difference between aerobic and anaerobic activities. Next they did several activities and recorded their heart rates at the end of each one. Half of these activities were aerobic and the other half were anaerobic. They took their recorded data and once again made a student created spreadsheet. Then they found the average heart rate of each activity and made a bar graph showing those averages. They needed to figure out which activities were aerobic and which were anaerobic. This was easy to see from the graph because the aerobic heart rates were all higher than the anaerobic heart rates. For the final project, the students made a poster on the computer telling how to get a healthy heart and how to keep it healthy. We displayed these throughout the school.
There was some teacher observation, they also printed their spreadsheets and graphs for the teacher to check, and the final project of a poster telling what they learned.
Was there a template or an example
that students were expected to follow?
When they made their spreadsheet, I gave them specific instructions to follow. This really helped me to see if they knew how to create a spreadsheet.
How much time did you dedicate to
this project?
Total – 20 hours
Daily (approximate) – 30-45 minutes
How was the final product
presented?
The students shared and explained their posters with the rest of the class, and then the posters were displayed throughout the school.
Who was the audience for the final
product?
The classroom students and the entire school were the audience.
What
prior knowledge was required on the part of the students in order for them to be
successful in this project? (include curriculum and technology knowledge)
The students had to:
know what cardiovascular meant
understand the importance of oxygen to the body
know how to read a graph
What was the student to computer
ratio?
1 student to 1 computer
How did you schedule your students’ computer time?
I scheduled computer lab time for my entire class as we needed it.
What
was the location of the computers and other technology equipment used by
students?
I showed them some spreadsheet skills in our classroom using the TVator. The rest of the computer time was in our computer lab.
How
would you suggest beginning teachers obtain computer resources for their
students? (Knowing some of your strategies would be valuable for our pre-service
teachers.)
I have received computer equipment from grants, applying for programs that donate equipment to the teacher in return for participation in their program, and also by asking local businesses to donate.
Rate
the level of access for students to use computers/other technologies as they
need—high, medium, low
The level of access for the computer use is high.
Rate
the level of supervision required for students during the project, specifically
for computer and other technology use—high, medium, low.
The level of supervision required with most students was medium, but with some it was very low.
What hardware was required for your project?
Computers and TVator
What software was required for your project?
Microsoft Excel and a paint or drawing program to make the posters.
Anything else?
Equipment for the various activities.
What
kind of assessment did you use for this project? (Include a copy if you can.)
Teacher observations, completion of spreadsheet, and completion of poster.
What
categories did you assess? (i.e.: content, screen design, depth/breadth, etc.)
I assessed their ability to create the spreadsheet and the quality of the students posters.
How
does the product that you submitted compare with other students’
products for this same project?
The project I submitted was average to high quality as compared to most of my students. Most of the class did about the same quality of work, although some students were lower quality and needed much more help.
What did you like best about this project?
My favorite part was watching my students create their spreadsheets. They really enjoyed this and wanted to make them fancy by adding colors and different fonts. It was fun to watch them experiment and play with Excel to see what the potential of a spreadsheet is.
What did the students like best about this project?
They enjoyed making a spreadsheet with their own data and then creating the graph. They also enjoyed having the BSU Professor here and all the activities he did with them.
Rank the level of student involvement in this project—high, medium,
low.
The level of student involvement was very high.
Rank the level of student interest in this project—high, medium,
low.
The level of student interest was very high, they really enjoyed it.
Would you teach this lesson again?
Yes I would, but I would make sure that my students really understood the difference between aerobic and anaerobic before creating the spreadsheet. I felt like I was having to reteach that part while in the computer lab.
Heart Rate Spreadsheet Activity
You will make a chart in Excel to enter all the data that our class gathered in the activities yesterday. This will also demonstrate your spreadsheet skills as learned in the M & M activity.
1. Go to the following cells and type in these labels:
A1 Student #
B1 Jogging Heart Rate
C1 Push-up Heart Rate
D1 Power Rate Heart Rate
E1 Chair Dips Heart Rate
F1 Ice Skate Heart Rate
G1 Sit Up Heart Rate
H1 Circle Dodge Heart Rate
I1 Weight Lifting Heart Rate
2. Make the font size on all the labels 10.
3. Highlight all the labels and make them wrap text. (Format, Cells, Alignment, Wrap text)
4. Center all the labels.
5. Make the columns the following width.
A 12
B - I 8
6. Make the height of rows 2-25 20.
7. Highlight cells A1 to I25 and put boarders (lines) around all of them.
8. Enter all your classmates information into the chart.
9. Highlight cells A2 to I25 and center all the information that you entered.
10. Print your spreadsheet.