PACER Preparation: 7th Grade: "Double or Nothing!"

Rarely do I share what happens at the middle school but felt this was too cool to not share.  All Camels Hump Middle School students are in preparation for upcoming annual Fitness Testing.  One of the categories students are tested in is Cardiovascular Endurance/V02 Max (how "in shape" is their heart?).  The actual test they will take is called the PACER.  It is running laps back and forth across the gym to a set cadence for as long as you can.  However many laps you get is your score.

One of my professional goals as an educator this year is to make fitness testing more interesting/intriguing/FUN.  In trying to reach my goal I found a game that's main objective is increasing a students cardiovascular endurance, but without the students really knowing this.

In the game "Double or Nothing" all student must run one lap around the coned off area to earn one point (a colored popsicle stick).  Once one stick is earned students have a choice: they can continue to run laps and earn a stick each time they come around to the orange stick bucket.  However, if they don't want to run anymore laps they can test their luck in the middle of gym/running track and challenge a fellow classmate to the game of "Double or Nothing."

In this game students wager a decided upon amount of sticks and play a game of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" to see who gets the sticks.  An example of this could be a student runs 5 laps and earns five sticks.  They then bring their five sticks to the middle and wager all five sticks against another students five sticks.  If they win they would then "Double Up" and have ten sticks.  That's five laps said student did not have to run!  However, if said student lost, they would be wiped out and be back down to 0 sticks and have to run at least one more lap to get back in the middle to play "Double of Nothing."

I was amazed and inspired buy all the students that just decided to run laps the WHOLE class.  There were students that ran over 60 laps to try and earn the most points.  They figured gambling their hard earned sticks was to risky (life lesson...).

The winner in each seventh grade class received a Powerade :)  One student had 117 total points at the end of a class.  He decided to run a little and gamble a little and got VERY lucky!

This game essentially got students focused on the end result: which was earning the most points and getting a Powerade.  This allowed them to focus not so much on the running aspect, which some students dread, but on the game aspect of having a choice whether to run to earn sticks or to gamble to earn sticks.  Students could stop at any point, they could walk at any point.  They needed to figure out their own formula of success. 

Mr. Shackett