Running Head: PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

Ashley Hart and Chloe Ventura

PPE 310
Dr. William Hesse
November 14, 2016

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Introduction
Adolescence has been called the Age of Opportunity because students are at a
very influential stage in life. Young children are also at a very influential stage in life as
they are new to school and vulnerable to learning and molding into whom they will
become. Both children and adolescents look at everything around them as they are trying
to navigate the world and find their place in it. This is an optimal time to establish and
model the importance of regular physical fitness and healthy living. Research has proven
that physical fitness not only improves cognitive function but impacts social and
emotional wellbeing as well. The purpose of this paper is to increase awareness of how
exercise impacts all students in our school and addresses what we can do to partner with
that and move towards an improved standard of living. We will analyze research and
bring to light the reality of how important physical fitness is in the lives of children and
adolescence. We have designed a healthy living plan and program that includes several
practical implications that will impact our school community.
In the classroom
There are endless amounts of ways to implement our healthy living plan into the
classroom setting. The fundamentals of our plan begin in the classroom educating the
children on our cause and why it is so important. It is extremely easy for teachers to
incorporate exercise and wellness into their classrooms. One way our plan can do this is
through enrichment periods. Each class will have an enrichment period once a week for
forty five minutes. During this period, our program will provide teachers with resources
and materials to talk to children and educate them about health and wellness. Teachers

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can incorporate videos, worksheets, hands on activities and even fun physical games to
get the children active and moving.
Our program will also provide teachers with a list of ways they can incorporate
health and wellness into their classrooms on a daily basis. Examples include, mobile
stations, morning exercises while counting up to 100 (for the younger grades), nature
walks for science, healthy snack choices etc. Our goal is to provide teachers with enough
knowledge and resources to be able to incorporate some sort of fitness or wellness into
their classroom daily.
Event Plan
The elementary and middle school will be hosting a health and wellness festival
to help raise awareness on the importance of staying active and healthy. The festival will
be organized and set up by our wonderful health and wellness committee, made up of our
parent and community volunteers. The festival will support the health and wellness
curriculum being taught in the school and will enhance students understanding of health
and wellness as well as allow them to participate and learn new ways of staying active
and healthy. The festival will include relay races, raffle prizes, healthy snacks, games, and
more!
Community Support
The community is a huge part of our event plan. The biggest goal of our health
and wellness festival is to raise awareness and encourage other schools to adopt our plan
and health and wellness curriculum into their schools. This wouldnt be possible without
the support of our community. We have community volunteers on our committee, and we
are welcoming all community members into our event. We will host a booth at the

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festival where community members can sign up to participate and support the cause for
the following year. We are hoping to grow our committee and overall community
participation every year.
Inclusion
Inclusion is a very important aspect that must be included in our festival. There
will be healthy snacks provided that accommodate different eating habits (vegetarian,
religious, allergies, etc). For any informational booths as well as our guest speaker, there
will be interpreters available for those who may need it. For the fitness aspect of the
festival, there will be modified exercises and games for those who need it as well. We
will have games available for all ages and abilities. Some of these may include modified
obstacle courses, walking and running tracks, exercises for those who may not have
lower body support, and many more. If there is ever something or someone that is not
able to participate in our event due to their modification needs, we will make every effort
to correct these errors for the following year. We will also be very flexible and do our best
to have extra materials on hand to try and correct the issue right then and there if at all
possible. It is very important that every member of our community is included and able to
participate.
Marketing
Marketing is an important aspect of our event. One of our biggest goals is to
increase community participation and to encourage as many people to participate as
possible. In order to do so, we will be using a variety of different posters and flyers to
increase awareness. One of the posters we will be using will serve the purpose of
motivating students to leave a happy healthy life (see appendix A).

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Another form of marketing we will use is a flyer that will be handed out to parents
and the community to raise awareness of our event (see appendix B). Finally, we will also
be creating an informative poster on healthy food choices that will be easily accessible to
the children and community (see appendix C).
Funding
Parent and community support is very big in schools, especially with the younger
children. Parents are always willing to help out and their help is always supported. In
order to fund prizes and materials for our health festival, we will ask parents for
donations. There will be a two week time frame before the festival that parents and
teachers will be able to donate items for the festival. For every donation received students
will receive an in school reward like a homework pass or a pass to eat lunch one day with
their teacher. These rewards will motivate students to encourage their parents to
participate in the donation. Between the elementary and the middle school, our
organization will be able to collect more than enough donations to support our festival.
Administration Proposals
In order to run our health festival, we will need to get it approved through
administration. We will first propose the idea of a health and wellness enrichment period
daily for the children. The purpose of this is to give children a foundation and basic
understanding of health and wellness and why it is important so that they can further
benefit from the health and wellness festival. We will ask admin to allow us to create a
schedule where teachers in charge of specials (PE, music, art, etc) can teach these
enrichment periods during their off periods. Each class will have a designated time to
attend these periods and it will be at the same time every day. We must then inform the

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principle of our plan to carry out our health and wellness festival which will build off of
the ideas and concepts taught in the enrichment periods. We will also inform the principle
of our plan to collect donations for the festival and reward students in return for their
help.
Committee
In order to better our program and health and wellness education, we will form a
health and wellness committee. This committee will be created using parent and
community volunteers. The job of the committee will be to gather information, materials,
resources, and lessons that can be used to teach children about health and wellness during
the enrichment periods. This will help to relieve stress and time from the teachers who
will be teaching enrichment as they already have lesson plans and things to do for their
main classes that they teach. The committee will meet with the enrichment teachers once
a week to talk about what will be taught that week and to exchange any material the
teachers may need. As for the health and wellness festival, the committee will be in
charge of what booths they think would be best to run based on the curriculum that is
being taught in the classroom. This committee will be our main point of contact and
support for creating and running the health and wellness festival.
Recognition
There will be a lot of recognition that will come with the health and wellness
festival. During one of the students enrichment periods, they will create a fitness goal
that they will be working towards before the festival. Students that reach these health and
fitness goals will be recognized at the festival and will receive a special prize. Our
wonderful staff and volunteers will also be recognized with a nice gift for all of their help

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and support in making the festival a success. The big hope for this festival is to raise
awareness on the importance of health and wellness, not only in our school but in our
whole community. Our goal is to put on a huge festival that brings in many people from
the community and other schools which will then hopefully encourage them to implement
the same ideas and teachings into their schools and curriculum. This is an event that we
hope to host every year with the hopes of gaining more recognition and raising more
awareness in our community. This will lead to community news and media, which will
continue to support our goal of getting the word out about the importance of health and
wellness. Although this is a school event, all of the community is welcome and will be
able to participate in the fun filled day.
Educational Components
The purpose of a community health festival is to partner our school with the local
community to create a fun and engaging event for adults and children to learn about
living a healthy lifestyle and making the right choices. Educational components of this
festival will be seminars discussing the importance of making healthy eating choices.
Several gyms from around the city will be offering free workout classes throughout the
day with some of their top instructors. There will be booths set up to discuss childhood
obesity, diabetes, and other health related issues our school has come together to combat.
For the children there will be a relay race between the classes in our school. We will also
have an optional scavenger hunt for families to observe and collect information about the
importance of healthy lifestyle choices. The festival will also include a produce booth
that will be run by a local farm. This booth will teach families the importance of buying

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their produce locally as well as providing some education in regards to healthy eating
habits and cooking tips.
Conclusion
Our hope is that by partnering with our community, we can implement a day to
celebrate and learn about what it looks like to live a healthy lifestyle through an event
that corresponds with the health and wellness in our school curriculum. As we seek to
educate families, we are providing practical tips and tools for them to not just hear about
this information but to implement it into their daily lives. The goal is that this plan will
lead our community towards healthier lifestyle choices that are long lasting changes. We
are also hopeful that we will be able to encourage other schools to adopt our health and
wellness curriculum to keep awareness alive which will continue to benefit the children
throughout all stages of their life.

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AppendixA:Fitness Motivational Poster

This fitness motivation poster will be used in common areas of the school grounds
in order to provide students with a clear understanding of what it means to live a healthy
life.

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Appendix B: Flyer for our Healthy Living Festival

This is a flyer that will be handed out to all students within our school as well as
handed out to parents and family members of the staff. These flyers will be used to spread
the word about the community healthy living festival and get more people involved.

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Appendix C: Healthy Eating Information

This poster will be put up in the school gymnasium as well as health

classes to educate students on healthy eating habits in combination with exercising habits.