What surprised me most about today was the amount of students that had never listened to their own heartbeat or anyone else's for that matter. They had heard heartbeats on TV but actually holding a stethoscope and using it was a new experience for most of my students. It also surprised me that many students had no idea how to find their pulse. I had to walk them through the process using the carotid artery and the wrist. It was interesting to watch them, they were so focused and engaged it was a beautiful thing to see.
After they listened with the stethoscopes and measured their pulse rate, I had them get a baseline and then do different exercises: jumping jacks. running in place, lifting up books from the floor and then resting in different positions. With each action, they counted their BPM and then at the end they graphed their data using a line graph. They were amazed at how high their BPM's got after each exercise and then began to compete with one another to see who had the highest BPM. They definitely burned off all their candy calories from Halloween night.
This type of activity is engaging and fun but for me it is an enlightening experience to see them interact and help each other. They were helping each other find their pulse and timing each other as they exercised. It was loud and very energetic. Since it was muddy after last nights rain, I decided to have them do the activity in the classroom. The louder it got the more engaged they were and it ended up being a very fun day.
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