P.E. Central Lesson Plan: Ridgerunner
Purpose of Activity:To motivate students to jog at the beginning of the class while learning about the Appalachian Trail. It is a nice way to integrate math into the curriculum as well.
Suggested Grade Level:6-12
Materials Needed:Map of the Appalachian Trail; gym or outside track; end of the week goal destination posters; a daily travel agent that will compute the class miles; calculator and a ruler to use to measure the scale and distant jogged on the map;
Lesson Plan:Description of Idea
The first week of the trimester we jog for three minutes and increase one minute per week for ten weeks. The last week of the trimester, students jogging for twelve minutes per day as a warm-up before their daily physical education activities. In order to motivate students we count each lap as one mile on the Appalachian Trail. Each class will take the sum of the miles per day and compute the class average. Once the daily class average is attained they will plot their progress on their class map. There is an end of the week goal destination (city, mountain, pass, etc.) about which students are able to learn basic facts and history. The class which travels farthest along the trail in ten weeks wins a prize (your choice).
Daily Class Procedure:
Students come to the gym and go to their respective locker rooms to change for physical education class. They are given 4 minutes to change and sit at their attendance spot on the gym floor. Attendance and checking if they changed for gym is taken at this time. The first student is designated the first travel agent. Every day there is a new travel agent. All students have the opportunity to be the travel agent at less twice during the trimester.
Duties of the Travel Agent:
They retrieve the miles traveled from the teacher and compute the class average on the itinerary sheet, which will give them the average mile per student to be plotted on the map. If the class reaches or passes a goal destination, the travel agent reads to the class that poster with information about that destination. They are responsible for plotting the miles on the map with a ruler using the map scale.
Author:John Fry who teaches at Timberstone Jr. High in Sylvania, OH. Posted on PEC: 7/16/2003.
This lesson plan was provided courtesy of P.E. Central (www.pecentral.org).
Products for This Lesson: