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PE Students Find Motivation to Continue Fitness Activities at Home

By focusing on activities that promote lifetime fitness, Scripps Middle School’s Kim McCool created new levels of excitement and achievement among her PE students. Now she hopes to extend that motivation beyond school hours. 

McCool’s students wear the IHT ZONE wrist heart rate monitors during class, and the teacher continually sees student engagement soar. But when she asked her students how they remain active away from class, few had answers that made the teacher smile. Read More

ESSA
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PE Coordinators Benefit from Mastering ESSA Language to Build Successful Proposals

Teachers using the summer to identify new funding sources to purchase valuable new tools for their programs should give themselves their own homework assignment: study the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

Those focused on student health and wellness should pay particular attention to ESSA Title IV, Part A. ESSA distributes $1.17 billion in federal grant funding that supplements the primary Department of Education budget. Read More

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Getting physical discussed in Elmwood Park

Originally published June 24, 2019 in the Chicago Tribune.

By Rachel K. Hindery

Providing students with varying kinds of physical activity is important for their academic achievement and adjustment to school and life, Elmwood Park District 401 school board members were told June 19.

Elm Middle School Assistant Principal Ashley Groeneveld said with kinetic wellness — an integration of physical, emotional and social learning — growth happens inside and outside the classroom. Read More

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New Survey Says Parents, School Principals Think Physical Activity Promotes Better Learning but Fail to Prioritize

Originally published June 13, 2019 by ActiveSchoolsUS on prweb.com.

By Claire Orphan Jensen

In two nationally representative surveys of parents and principals on physical education and physical activity in schools across the United States, the collective impact movement Active Schools aimed to gain a better understanding of the ways in which schools are, or are not, promoting childhood health and well-being.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends that children and adolescents age 6 to 17 participate in at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity every day, yet national data shows that many fall short of that. Read More

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The Best Type of Exercise Uses Your Body – And Your Brain

Originally published June 17, 2019 in Quartzy.

By Andrew Merle

Dr. John Ratey has studied the brain for more than 40 years.

As a psychiatrist, he has always been interested in how we can make our brains function better. And while he appreciates the magic of modern medicine, he has found that lifestyle factors have the most profound effects on the brain.

In particular, he has found that exercise is the number one thing we can do for brain health.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Ratey last week at his office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to learn more about the effects of exercise on the brain, and what we can all do in our own lives to reap the benefits. Read More