sports equipment
- baseball, soccer ball, football, jumprope, etc.
notebooks for
journals, pens, pencils, markers
Getting
started
For homemade
stethoscope: cut off tops of bottles to make a funnel shape, and tape tubing
through the mouth of the bottle.
Predict when
heart rate will be fastest: before or after playing sports, and how much faster
it will be. Have them record their predictions in the journals.
Use the stethoscopes
to measure their heart rates sitting down, standing up, lying down, and after
jumping rope or tossing a ball for a few minutes, by counting heart beats
per minute (either directly or by counting for six seconds and multiplying
by ten or similar).
How long after
activity does your heartbeat return to normal "standing" rate?
Try the same
activities but counting breaths to determine breath rate.
What next
Creation
and invention:
Create a graph
or chart of your findings
Create a graph
or chart comparing resting and/or active heart rates for several different
people.
Discussion:
How does your
resting and active heart rate compare to that of your friends? Your family?
Did your findings
match your predictions? Why?
Can you control
how fast your heart rate or your breath rate returns to "standing"
rate?
Are there ways
that measuring heart rate and breath rate are different?
Field
trip possibilities:
a local
science museum that has a health exhibit, or a health museum.
a local
university that conducts health research: see what kinds of equipment
they have for measuring heart rate, breath rate, and other exercise-related
indicators.
talk to
a high school or college athletic trainer about their job caring for
the health of athletes.
