Fitness and gaming

This lesson involves a series of discussions and ranking activities to develop students understanding of the link between fitness, pulse rate, respiration, and activity.

This activity was designed as a science activity but would be an excellent opportunity to be taught in conjunction with PE and mathematics.

Students will divide themselves into groups of 4 to 6 and have a discussion to establish what the group understands by the meaning of the word ‘fitness’ and clarify a group definition.

Students should consider the following questions: what do we mean by someone’s level of fitness? What is a pulse rate? What is respiration and where does it happen? Why do we need our heart and blood? What is energy and how does it relate to activity?

• Projector
• Whiteboard

The ‘Who’s the winner’ scheme of work provides students with an opportunity to collect data which they can use as evidence to debate whether people should be encouraged to engage in computer-based sports activities. The investigation highlights how difficult it is to control all variables and therefore carry out a fair test. The students’ evaluation of the investigation will allow them the chance to question the validity of the data, question the size of the data set used and question the time span data needs to be collected over before it can be used to confirm a claim.

By the end of this engaging activity students will be able to explain what is meant by fitness, pulse rate and respiration and how they are affected by activity. They will also be able to explain how fitness relates to level of activity.