Adapted from the Physical Best, Third Edition
Artery Avengers
Adapted from the Physical Best, Third Edition
Standard 3. The physically literate individual demonstrates the knowledge and skills to achieve and maintain a health-enhancing level of physical activity and fitness.
Artery Avengers will help students understand that too much fat will clog arteries and how physical activity helps keep the heart and blood vessels healthy.
Equipment: 12 hoops, 30-40 yarn balls, 6 Frisbees
Set up: Divide students into two teams. Assign each team to opposite boundary lines. The field of play needs to be divided by a center line. Spread out six hoops in each teams playing area. Sprinkle the yarn balls throughout the play area on both sides. This game is played in two stages. Stage one play without Frisbees. Stage two play with three Frisbees on each side.
STAGE ONE-
Explain: Each hoop represents an artery in your body. The yarn balls are molecules of fat.
Object: Throw yarn balls overhand or underhand into the opponent’s hoops.
Rules:
- Do not pass the center line. Students may only play on one side of the activity area.
- Pick up only one fat molecule (yarn ball) at a time.
- A player may not pick up a fat that is rolling, bouncing or in the air. It must be stationary.
- Any fat molecule that lands in an artery cannot be removed.
Follow up for stage one: Give students plenty of time to be successful at getting plenty of fats into the opponent’s arteries. Stop the game and examine the how the fat takes up space and clogs the arteries. Now, tell students that one way to prevent fats from clogging arteries is to exercise.
STAGE TWO-
Explain: Frisbees are shields and represent moderate physical activity. Now play with shields to stop and block any fat that is rolling, bouncing or in the air, but they cannot remove a fat that does make it into their hoops. Give three students on each side a Frisbee to shield their arteries with exercise.
Empty arteries and play round two.
Follow up for stage two: Then compare how many fats made it into the arteries when “exercise” was added. Remind students to be active for 60 minutes a day to keep their arteries healthy.
Extension lesson- Ask students to stand by the artery that is the healthiest. An artery that has one fat is the healthiest. An artery with no fat is not the healthiest. A bodies need some fat. A healthy person can have 20-35 percent of their caloriesfrom fat.