I usually recommend using pedometers with students in the 3rd grade and on up, as research shows that K-2 kids are really getting plenty of activity as is without our interference, i.e., let them play uninhibited!
There are some lesson ideas posted on http://www.pecentral.org and some free teaching resources available on www.new-lifestyles.com, but the best usage of pedometers is as a physical activity measurement device and (combined with record keeping) a behavior modification device. You can use http://www.logit.org as a record keeping system for elementary students or http://www.everystepcounts.com as a record keeping system for middle and high school students.
For grade 3 and up, I would recommend a step counter only model with no other functions. Then, encourage your students to think through how to convert their step counts to distance in feet, in yards, in miles, in centimeters, in meters and in kilometers. Make them use their own computers--their brains! Have the students wear the pedometer for a few days to determine their base line/current level of physical activity in steps per day. Develop with the class ten strategies that they can use to increase their level of physical activity or steps per day. Finally, put the strategies into practice to see if the students can learn some ways to modify their current behaviors to increase their number of daily steps.
Students are already active in PE class--so I think pedometers are more useful outside of PE when the kids are less likely to be moving. Let the students take the pedometers home and get their parents involved. Had you thought about bar-coding some of them and placing them in the library so that the students could check them out like a book? I think it would be great to let the students take them home!
These are just a few of my many ideas. I have written and published a teacher's activity guidebook, Teaching with Pedometers: A School Activity Guide, which is available along with many other pedometer program materials on our website www.new-lifestyles.com . More than half of the book is dedicated to activity ideas, categorized by age level.
Thank you for your email. Hope this gives you some ideas.
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Teresa Vollenweider, President
NEW-LIFESTYLES, INC.
Fitness and Pedometer Expert
