What are you doing this month?

Did you know that one of the themes for the month of May is National Physical Fitness and Sports Month?

I found this information on Thinkfinity:

Join the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and discover the benefits of exercise and a healthy lifestyle. Learn more as you explore these lessons, interactives, and resources from Thinkfinity and its Content Partners.

• Exercise and Nutrition Resources This collection of resources from ScienceNetLinks offers lessons, tools, and podcasts on these topics for all ages. (Science | Health | All Grades)
• Reading into Action Discover how to turn an engaging story into a physical activity with ideas from this ArtsEdge tipsheet. (Reading | Physical Education | All Grades)   
• What Is a Slam Dunk? Trace the meaning of the phrase from its beginnings in basketball to its current use in other fields. Then test your athletic powers with physical activity followed by creative work on your sports vocabulary. (Science | Vocabulary | Grades PK-6) 
• Health Photo Gallery Consider the geographic implications of health and nutrition through these photographs that reflect how health and exercise are influenced by where people live, work, and play. (Primary Sources | Culture | Grades 3-12)   
• Write "Moving" Sports Poetry What verbs describe the movements of your favorite sports hero? Watch short videos of sports athletes in action and share what you observe in the form of sports poetry. (Writing | Grades 3-5)   
• Got Broccoli? Explore the connection between what you eat and the body's ability to grow and repair itself. (Science | Nutrition | Grades 3-5)  
• MyPlate Food Guide Investigate the USDA's MyPlate Food Guide to learn what foods provide the nutrients your body needs to be active and to maintain a healthy weight. (Science | Health | Grades 6-8)  
• The Victor's Virtue: A Cultural History of Sports Learn how sports, philosophy, and culture intersect through the Greek word arete. Examine Greek primary source texts to discover how this concept applies to current high school sports culture. (History | Literature | Grades 9-12)

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When looking through those resources, did you notice the ways that literacy was connected to sports and nutrition in each of them?

Think about the opportunities for reading, writing, research, creating, thinking, and reflecting explored in those resources ....

photo credit: Patrick|Choi via photo pin cc 

21st Century Weight Management

Have you been wondering why your clothes do not fit as well over the past few weeks? Have you made your New Year’s resolution to lose weight? Here is a new way to keep track of your food intake. Go to http://www.livestrong.com/ and click on 'The Daily Plate' on the dash board. This site, along with the Live Strong site bring weight management into the 21st Century.

This site is great for those of us that are wanting to lose weight, gain weight, or just maintain...counting calories. After entering height, weight, etc. and how much you’d like to lose, gain, or maintain a week, it will calculate how many calories you should be allowed in one day. After entering all the items you eat/drink each day, it will calculate the fat, calories, sugar, etc. that you have consumed and how many more/less calories you should consume for the remainder of the day. It contains many brand name items like the McDonald’s Crispy Chicken Snack Wrap and even that Biscuitville Ham Biscuit. You can also enter items from your own special recipe. It will show a pie graph of the carbs, fats, and protein you are eating daily. By the end of the day, it's amazing how much sugar I had consumed. It contains many other excellent features, but be sure to check out the exercises that can burn fat…Did you know that making copies and applying makeup can burn those calories?

Medpedia - A Collaborative Online Medical Encyclopedia

Medpedia http://www.medpedia.com/index.php/Main_Page will be coming online at the end of this year. You can go there now to preview the site or apply to be a medical professional member. Like Wikipedia, it will be the largest collaborative online encyclopedia. However, Medpedia will be totally dedicated to health, medicine and the human body. This collection of work will be a tremendous impact for the medical field, scientists, researchers, educators and the general public. In the near future you will have the ability to learn about the 30,000 plus known diseases, 10,000 plus prescribed drugs, the thousands of different medical procedures and the millions of medical facilities around the world. The content will be written for the general public but it will also contain more technical pages for those in the medical field. Medpedia will contain the latest intelligence on health and medical issues. The web pages will include images, video and sound. Only screened and licensed medical professionals and organizations will be able to edit Medpedia's content. Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, the University of California Berkley School of Public Health, the University of Michigan Medical School and several other health organizations will be some of the content editors for this massive project.

Hopefully we will never have a need to visit some of these pages, other than for education, but if we do, it will be an incredible resource to help us understand these important issues.