First and foremost, Happy Mother’s Day!

I hope the quality time with your family has been a silver lining to staying home during the pandemic. Recently, my wife had a fun Zoom meeting with some of her best friends (who are also moms) and it was funny to overhear some of the stories about how life has adjusted with the kids 24/7. I hope that your kids and spouse make it as special of a day as they can for you during this “quarantine edition” of Mother’s Day. To help you celebrate with Montessori Physical Education, if you type in MOTHERSDAY2020 for the coupon code in our store, you will receive 50% on all purchases from May 10th-17th.

 This new Human Body Experiment lesson is a thank you to everyone who has already purchased my lessons and albums, those that have downloaded my free lessons, those who have attended my presentations, and for everyone who appreciates my work in person or through social media engagement. I appreciate the Montessori and physical education communities for showing interest in my philosophy of integrating physical education with the Montessori classroom.

 Without further ado:

Human Science Experiments: Which Mode of Exercise Changes Heart Rate the Most?

An Excerpt from Montessori Physical Education Volume Two (Both Volumes One and Two on sale for $29 each)

Montessori Physical Education

Human Body Experiments: Heart Rate

 

 Introduction:

            These Human Body experiment lessons should be used in conjunction with lessons about the scientific method (especially if your school does a science fair). Each experiment in the series will identify the following topics:

·      Question

·      Hypothesis

·      Materials

·      Procedure

·      Control, independent, and dependent variable

·      Results

·      Conclusion

When an experiment is explained to the students, these pieces should be referenced at all times. This will help the students understand these concepts in an applied setting. Hopefully this will help the students in their own idea generation, or at the very least, help them correctly identify their controls and variables within an already established experiment.

Another option for the human body experiment series is to teach these lessons as the students are learning about the human body, specifically as a follow-up to the Great River Lesson. This theme of this experiment is measuring heart rate and how it changes in response to different modes of exercise. The students will learn how to find and measure their own heart rate, and analyze how it changes in response to different modes of exercise.

 

Materials: 

·      Large open space for running (backyard, around the block, treadmill, etc.)

o   Some orange cones

o   Hula hoops (optional)

o   Jump rope (optional)

o   Yoga mats for the ground (optional)

 

Prior Knowledge: The students should have had some biology lessons in general, and depending on where this lesson is taught in the curriculum, either a lesson on the Scientific Method or the Great River Lesson.

 

Presentation 

·      Start with reminding the student(s) of the scientific method. The parts of the scientific method are question, hypothesis, experiment (include materials, procedure, controls, independent and dependent variables in this section), results, and conclusion. There is also a research phase that comes after the question phase, but as the teacher you will be providing the background research for them.

·      Ask your students this question, “Which mode of exercise increases heart rate the most?” Show the students the different exercises, which can be as few or as many you want depending on the size of the class or interests of the students. I would advise having at minimum three different activities; however, the more types of activities, the more interesting the results. Some cardiovascular activities include sprinting (students run to a distance, then walk back to the start line, then run again and repeat), continuous jogging, and continuous jumping jacks. However, additional materials can be used for more exercises like: jump rope, hula-hoop, shooting basketballs and fetching the rebound, hitting a tennis ball with a tennis racket off the wall, etc. Then we have anaerobic exercises like push-ups, squats, pull-ups, crunches, etc. For jump roping and hula-hoops, if they miss the jump or drop the hoop, they need to restart as soon as possible. For push-ups and crunches, they need to do as many as they can. Once they cannot, take a 10-30 second break, then do as many as they can. The students repeat this until the time interval is over. A good interval time for the students to do their exercise is between two to four minutes.

·      Now that the students know the question and the various modes of exercise, they need to make a hypothesis. If your student(s) just says the name of an exercise without further explanation, ask them to add a “because statement” after their hypothesis. For example, “I think jogging will raise heart rate the most because there are no breaks.”

·      After the student(s) have made their own hypotheses, explain the procedure of the experiment to the students.

o   The students must first find their resting heart rate. The student(s) should not use their thumbs to feel for their pulse because the thumb has a faint pulse of it’s own, which may disturb the students ability to accurately count heart rate. The two main places to find the pulse for counting heartbeats are in the neck and the wrist.

§  To find the pulse in the neck, have the students trace their fingers (starting under their ear and behind the jaw) down their neck slowly with their index and middle finger. Eventually they should feel the pulse about half way down the neck.

§  To find the pulse in the wrist, with their index and middle finger, the students should trace down their thumb and palm until they get to their wrist. It will not be found in the middle of the wrist, but more off to the side of the thumb.

o   To find resting heart rate the students should lie down on the ground for one minute and calm themselves. After one minute, the instructor will tell the students to begin counting their heartbeat. The instructor will keep track of the time. Once one minute is over, the instructor will tell the students to record their resting heart beat.

o   Now that the students have their resting heartbeat, they should pick one of the exercises for the day.

§  The sprint station should have two cones that designate the distance that the students are going to sprint. When the instructor says, “go,” the students run from one cone to the other as fast as they can go. Once they get to the other cone, they walk back to the initial cone from where they started. Once they get back to the starting cone, they run as fast as they can back to the other cone. They repeat this process until the time interval is over.

§  The jogging station should jog around the designated area (backyard, neighborhood, etc.). They should be jogging at a pace that they can sustain for the full interval time. If the students can talk to each other while jogging, that is probably a reasonable pace for the students to adhere.

§  The jumping jack station should perform jumping jacks at a pace that they can continue uninterrupted for the entire time interval. Again, if the students can speak to each other, that is a reasonable pace.

§  If the students are jumping rope or hula hooping, they should go for as long as possible. If they hit the rope or drop the hula-hoop, they should pick it up and begin again as quickly as possible. It is not as important for the students to go fast as it is for the students to be able to continue a pace for the full time interval.

§  If the students are doing push-ups, sit-ups, etc., the students should initially perform as many as they can until they get tired. Once they are tired, they should take a 10-30 second break, and then do as many repetitions as they can. This process is repeated until the time interval is completely over.

§  Feel free to add another exercise that the students might enjoy, or an exercise that the students would like to test to see how it affects heart rate.

·      When an interval is over, make sure that students record their data every time they perform one of the experiments. They should label their paper with the control and their resting heart rate, and then next to that each exercise with its corresponding new heart rate after exercise.

·      To make this experiment very accurate, only do one exercise per day. That ensures that the resting heart completely returns to normal before each bout of exercise. This also prolongs the length of the experiment, which builds anticipation for the student and is helpful for the teacher (especially if you are a parent teaching from home under quarantine).

·      Once the student(s) are done with all the exercises, analyze and compare the data. Which exercise increased heart rate the most? Which exercise increased heart rate the least? Were there differences in the student(s) resting heart rate from one day to the next?

·      Have the student(s) share their results. Which exercise increased heart rate the most? Why? Which mode of exercise was the most intense (you may need to explain intensity)? Did that have an effect on heart rate? If there were differences between the resting heart rate of one day to another, why?

·      If this lesson is being used to reinforce the scientific method, have a discussion on the different parts of the experiment and how they fit into the scientific method model.

o   Hypothesis: Which mode of exercise will raise heart rate the most? Why?

o   Materials: What other types of exercise would increase heart rate besides the ones you tried?

o   Procedure: What is the independent variable (the mode of exercise)? What is the dependent variable (the heart rate)? What is the control (resting heart rate)?

o   Results: Did the mode of exercise you thought would raise heart rate the most actually raise heart rate the most? Why or why not? If not, which one did?

o   Conclusion: Was the hypothesis similar to the results? Why or why not?

 

 

Aims:

Direct:    For the students to perform an experiment using the scientific method.

Indirect:   Listening to directions

                Measuring heart rate

                Math skills

                Recording skills and organization

               

 

 

Physical skills practiced: 

·      Sprinting

·      Jogging

·      Jumping Jacks

·      Various forms of exercise used in the experiment

 

Control Of Error: 

The student’s should record their data, so they will not have to commit it all to memory. The instructor will act as timekeeper to assist the student during their experiment.

 

Points of Interest: The students will be interested to see which exercise gets their heart rate increased the most, and it may not be what they thought it was.

 

Age:

6-9 (with significant help)

9-12 (with a little help)

Middle School (probably can do it on their own)