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Club trek
Dear Carol,I am a new P.E. teacher looking to implement a new running/walking program to encourage physical activity that students will be able to use for the rest of their life. I want to use a U.S. map and have the kids walk to different states and when they reach those states they will learn about these states and virtually travel.
Do you know of any way that I can get some kind of measurements to tell the kids when they get to where they are going?
Or do you know how I can involve other schools throughout the U.S. so we can "visit" each other as we walk/run to one anothers city or state? I am sure that I am not the first teacher to do this so if you know of anyone already doing this I would love any advice from experts! Thanks so much for your time.
Tracey
You are correct. This is a tried and true classroom activity and it's a great project for your students. I did a Trek across the U.S. with my children about 6 years ago and at the time I used an Atlas road map (booklet) of the U.S. bought at a local book store. Inside there was a distance table and I simply used that to chart my distances, but it should be so much easier and more interesting now with the Internet.
Here's a site that will help you with distances. timeanddate.com (ex. plug in from Chicago to Indianpolis)
Here's a site that will help you with interesting attractions in your checkpoints along the way for the kids (such as the Indianapolis Zoo) tripadvisor.com
Just click away and you can get ideas that will turn your project into an extremely motivating and fun one for the kids.
And if all else fails just use http://www.google.com Click in whatever you need "distance from Los Angeles to Denver" etc. and you'll find many more sites that will help you.
As for talking to classes along the way - try the teachers.net. They have primary and elementary chatboards. Look for these on the toc (table of contents) (left hand column of the site).
Probably your best bet, however, would be to subscribe to the PE newsgroup. I think that you would get great response from this group. You subscribe here: http://www.lyris.sportime.com/naspe-talk-index.html
To top it off, read Dick Hoyt's "It's Only a Mountain" for your own pleasure reading and then pass some of Dick's inspiration onto the kids by telling them about this book. It's a true story of Dick's trek across America with his handicapped son. It's written by Sam Nall and available on amazon.com.
Carol
