Increasing children's volume of physical activity through walk and play

This document looks at the contribution of walking and playing outside the home to children’s volume of physical activity. The document draws on research carried out at University College London (UCL) in which 200 children were fitted with three-dimensional motion sensors and asked to keep travel and activity diaries over a period of four days. From these it is possible to establish what the children did, how they travelled and how much energy they used. Using these data, the contributions of unstructured out-of-home events (playing) and walking to children’s volume of physical activity are demonstrated. It is also shown that these unstructured events tend to be associated with walking rather than use of the car, unlike structured out-of-home events. It is also shown that children who walk to events tend to be more active when they arrive than those who travel by car. The effect of an initiative to promote walking is considered. Conclusions are drawn about the need to remove various barriers to enable children to spend more time out of the home where they will be more active and so lead healthier lives, and the value of facilitating opportunities for walking

Overcoming the barriers to walking for children

This paper is an output from the project CAPABLE (Children?s Activities,Perceptions and Behaviour in the Local Environment) being carried out at UCL,jointly between the Centre for Transport Studies, the Department of Psychology, theBartlett School of Planning and the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis. The overallaim of the project, which runs from 1 August 2004 to 31 July 2006, is to examine theinteraction between children and the local environment, including identifying howchildren use open space and streets, and why they go to some places but not others.This paper draws on results from questionnaires completed by children about theextent to which they are allowed out unaccompanied by an adult. The surveys werecarried out in four schools, two in Hertfordshire, the area immediately north ofLondon, and two in the London Borough of Lewisham. The purpose is to establish theextent to which the children are allowed by their parents to go out unaccompanied byadults. The issues covered include whether the children go out walking or cyclingwithout an adult, whether they are allowed out alone to visit friends houses, go outafter dark or to cross main roads. The results are considered in terms of the children?sage and gender, and in terms of the households? car ownership level and the strengthof its local social networks. It is found that more of the children in Hertfordshire areallowed out alone, despite the fact that the factors that seem to correlate with beingallowed out unaccompanied are stronger in Lewisham. It is concluded that this maywell be due to environmental factors, real and perceived

Cities for children: the effects of car use on their lives

9-11 June 2004 In Britain, children are walking less than they used to. A major factor causing this decrease is the growth in car use. These trends are reducing children’s quantity of physical activity, with serious implications for their health. The purpose of this paper is to explore these themes using results from a 3-year research project entitled ‘Reducing children’s car use: the health and potential car dependency impacts’ which has been carried out in the Centre for Transport Studies at University College London in collaboration with others including Hertfordshire County Council, with fieldwork being carried out in Hertfordshire, an area immediately north of London. A major component of the project was a study of 200 children aged between 10 and 13 years of age using motion sensors coupled with the use of a travel and activity diary over four days. The sensors measured movement in three dimensions which was converted to activity calories, a measure of physical activity. Events from the travel and activity diaries were mapped onto the data from the sensors so that it was possible to isolate and analyse specific time periods, events and journeys. From these data, the comparative effects of different forms of transport on children’s physical activity have been established, producing clear evidence of the benefits of walking compared with car travel. It is found that the use of the car is linked to particular types of activity. For example, structured out-of-home activities, such as clubs and sports lessons tend to be reached by car while informal activities such as playing, are associated more with walking. This means that the shift from the latter to the former is one of the factors underlying children’s increasing use of the car. The motion sensors have facilitated the calculation of the intensity of various activities in terms of using activity calories. Walking is second only to physical education (PE) or games lessons in intensity. It was found that, for the older children, walking to and from school for a week used more activity calories than two hours of PE or games lessons, which is the recommended standard in Britain. It was also found that children who walk to activities are more active when they arrive at activities than those who travel by car, particularly in the more energetic activities, which suggests that walking brings wider health benefits than is generally recognised. Another strand of the project upon which this paper is based is the evaluation of walking buses. From the various surveys in the study it appears that about half of the trips on walking buses were previously walked, but there is not an equivalent decrease in the number of car trips because many of the children were being dropped at school in the course of a longer trip by a parent

Reconstructing and Teaching Medieval Paris in the Digital Age

Digital Resource Reviews Spring 202

Classroom Teachers’ Perceptions of their Knowledge of Content and Pedagogy in Terms of a Technology-Driven Lesson

The influx of technology in the high school classroom has increased the demand for technology integration. But teachers struggle to implement technology in their lessons, which suggests that there may be barriers in their knowledge of content and pedagogy in a technology-driven lesson design. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to investigate teachers’ perceptions of their knowledge of content and pedagogy for incorporating technology in lesson design as aligned with the TPACK framework. A basic qualitative design was used to answer two research questions focused on the high school teachers’ perceptions of their knowledge, their pedagogy, and their barriers when designing technology-driven lessons. Data were collected using semi structured interviews of 13 certified core subject teachers employed by Public Magnet High School (pseudonym) teaching Grades 9–12. The process for analyzing the data started with a deductive analysis followed by an inductive analysis for themes to emerge. Results indicated that teachers were competent in their content knowledge but lacked sufficient knowledge in pedagogy and technology to create an appropriate technology-based lesson in their content area. Based on the findings, a 3-day professional development was created for teachers on learning objectives, types of pedagogies, and content-specific technologies, all based on Bloom’s revised taxonomy. This study is expected to impact social change by providing administrators, instructional designers, and lead teachers with a more in-depth understanding of the barriers that exist within technology integration and its relationship with content and pedagogy to improve classroom instruction, thus improving students’ academic achievement

History of science and its utopian reconstructions

In recent years explicitly utopian visions have reappeared across the political spectrum. To a surprising degree these visions have drawn on histories and science and technology. What should scholars of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) make of these developments? The concept of utopia has often been treated with considerable distrust in these fields, as an indication of closed end-directed blueprints, or as an indication of fantasies of limitless technological improvement and purification of categories. Alongside this uneasiness, however, HPS and STS scholars have also projected transformative ambitions, seeking to recover from the past different ways of knowing and relating to the human and non-human world. By engaging with critiques of utopia from thinkers including Karl Popper, Otto Neurath, Bruno Latour, Isabelle Stengers and Donna Haraway, and exploring some of the utopian strands which have recurred in studies of science and technology—including the longing for integration, the association of science with planning, and the ways in which feminist scholars have envisaged alternative forms of science—we can understand the ongoing, and often unrecognised, utopian dimensions of HPS and STS

Increasing the amount of walking by children

Children’s car use is increasing. As a result of this, they are walking less. This has serious implications for their quantity of physical activity and consequently for their health. In this paper, findings are presented from a research project being carried out in the Centre for Transport Studies at University College London to examine these effects. A major element of the research involved fitting 200 children with portable motion sensors for a period of four days to measure their quantity of physical activity. In parallel with this, they kept travel and activity diaries, so that it was possible to establish how much energy they consumed in various activities, including walking. It is shown that walking to school for a week consumes more calories than one week’s worth of physical education (PE) and games lessons, and that children who walk to events tend to use more energy in participating in them than children who are driven by car. The effectiveness of a specific initiative to encourage children to shift from the car to walking, namely the walking bus, is examined in detail, and found to be effective in helping to achieve this objective

Sexual Dimorphism of the Second Cervical Vertebra in Humans

The pelvis and skull are frequently examined for the expression of sex-linked traits as are the humeral and femoral head dimensions. The second vertebra allows for rotation of the head, which is larger in males than in females. The axis is positioned close to other traits that have been shown to exhibit dimorphism, such as the mastoid process, gonial region, nuchal area, and the occipital protuberance. To explore which dimensions of the axis differ the most between females and males, and investigate its relationship to age, 149 individuals from the W.M. Bass Osteological Collection at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville were measured using 13 linear distances. The three age cohorts included 30-35, 50-55, and 70-75 years. The results indicate that all the traits show significant differences between the sexes. Using discriminant function analysis, predictive functions were created to estimate the sex of unknown individuals using 6 traits, 4 traits, 3 traits and 2 traits

Setting Children Free: Children’s Independent Movement in the Local Environment

Parental concerns about children’s safety and security are restricting children’s independent exploration of the local environment. Children are being denied important opportunities to exercise, to acquire decision-making skills, such as crossing the road safely, and to develop social skills through interaction with their peers. This paper presents findings from the project CAPABLE (Children’s Activities, Perceptions And Behaviour in the Local Environment) being carried out at University College London. Based on findings from fieldwork carried out with children aged 8-11 in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, the paper shows the effect of factors such as the number of adults at home, having an older sibling, having a car or garden at home and living near to a park on the propensity to be allowed out alone. Then it considers how being allowed out alone affects the amount of time children spend outdoors, playing with friends and watching television. The paper then uses data from children who have been fitted with physical activity monitors and GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) monitors and asked to keep diaries, to show how children’s travel behaviour differs when they are with adults from when they are not