As a future educator, Joe Rice is concerned about more than teaching math and reading to his elementary school students. He is concerned about teaching them how to lead healthy and long lives as well.
That is why Rice, a sophomore elementary education major at Ball State University, along with about 150 other students enrolled in the Health Science 350 course, is preparing to present at a semiannual health fair April 13 for Delaware County third graders. Rice and a group of students are planning to present a lesson on cardiovascular fitness to the elementary students, complete with cardiovascular activities and the students' own workout schedules.
"It is important to teach children the importance of health because at the elementary-school age the children are beginning to make decisions about what they want to eat and what activities they want to do," Rice said. "It is important that the children know how their choices of activities and nutrition will impact their quality of life and their life span."
Denise Seabert, an assistant professor of physiology and health science, also has worked with the health fair project and said the program has two main goals: to teach the children and to educate teachers on how to address health issues with children.
"[Health] is not getting taught a lot," she said. "Maybe the health fair will give teachers some ideas on how to teach it."
Each group of Ball State students will choose a different health topic to teach the children. In the past, topics have included bicycle and water safety, bullying, manners, personal hygiene and lice, among many others, said Susan Clark, physiology and health science instructor and health fair coordinator.
"A healthy person learns a lot better; a healthy person is a happier person," Clark said. "It makes them better able to navigate their own lives."
About 400 to 500 third graders from more than eight elementary schools around the county will attend this semester's health fair, in which each group of Ball State students will set up presentation boards about their topics, conduct activities and answer questions to further the children's health knowledge, Clark said.
The program started seven years ago when Clark's classes conducted a health fair at Washington Carver Elementary School in Muncie. Eventually, the program expanded to Garfield Elementary School in Muncie. Once other Ball State staff members got involved, the fair moved to Ball State's L.A. Pittenger Student Center, Clark said.
Along with the presentations for the third graders, Ball State students will offer teacher packets filled with ideas on how to further educate their students on the health topics presented. The Ball State students also will offer integration packets that have ideas on how to combine health topics with other subjects more commonly taught in schools, such as reading, Seabert said.
Whether students learn health topics from the health fair or from their third-grade teachers, it is important that they become aware of issues surrounding their safety and well-being, Seabert said.
"The habits we develop at a young age are what we tend to go through life with," she said. "We aren't going to completely change their lifestyles, but maybe a little exposure will make them think twice about a health issue."
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