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October 1, 1998
A Spreadsheet With Heart
by Catherine Nelson
Our Physical Education teacher was seeking an innovative way to make learning more relevant and to integrate several subject areas. Her students were already studying the heart and heart rates and she had already decided to combine fitness with math by having them learn how to take and record their pulses. She came to me for help and was ecstatic when I found a worksheet that taught students to find their heart rate and their target heart rate (the rate at which exercise is benefitting one's heart).
That's when I realized what an opportunity this would be to demonstrate the benefits of a spreadsheet. Although I am pretty much a novice with the Microsoft Excel program, I figured if everyone worked together we could figure it out - and I was right! We developed the formulas that used the student's pulse rate at rest and pulse rate after a fifteen-minute workout to calculate the target heart rate (which is a factor of age).
Once we knew that the formulas worked we had each student come in with the data they recorded in the gym and plug their numbers into the spreadsheet. Then each student had to create a bar graph showing his or her heart rate both at rest and after exercise as well as the target heart rate. In the gym, we displayed the students' graphs in two sections: one for students meeting or exceeding their target heart rate and the other for students not reaching their target heart rate. Although most were meeting their goals, the students quickly could tell who were the "loafers" in gym! Many demanded the opportunity to do their exercises over!
The students were really into this activity and learned several things. They learned about exercise, and how to tell when you are benefitting from a workout. They learned about checking heart rate and what sort of information a heart rate provides. More importantly, they learned how math is used in a real life situation and they learned how to use the tools of technology (spreadsheet in this case) to assist them in calculation and in graphing. They also began to realize that the spreadsheet could be useful in other classes. And our colleagues saw that subject integration can happen through simple teacher collaboration.
The web sites that cover target heart rate are:
Email: Catherine Nelson
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