More and more research is showing that our current generation of 5 to 11 year olds is more unfit that previous ones. Many explanations are offered - most revolving around tv, computers and availability of "junk" food.

Therefore in this topic we concentrate on exercise and healthy eating:

Exercise

How fit is Roamer? Devise a fitness test. This could include:

• How much can Roamer pull?
• What sort of slope can Roamer go up?
• How long can Roamer run for?

How fit are you? Devise a fitness test for humans.

Compare how Roamer performs with how you perform. What are the sources of energy for robots and humans? Which gets tired quickest? Which is strongest? What can humans do that robots/Roamer can't? (climb stairs?skip?) and vice versa.

Look at the human body as a machine what does it need?

Healthy Eating

Place six paper plates on the floor. On five of them place pictures from the five food groups:

Fruit and Vegetables
Dairy Products - milk, cheese, eggs, yoghurt etc
Cereals bread, - pasta, potatoes, rice etc
Fatty & sugary foods, - sweets, crisps, butter chips etc
Meat and alternatives - meat, fish, quorn, tofu, pulses etc

You may wish to have 2 plates of fruit and vegetables to emphasise their importance and remove the plate of fatty and sugary foods and just place it back every so often to emphasise the fact that they should be considered an "occasional treat".

Roamer should be programmed to visit each food group plate and select something from it (this can be blu-tacked to Roamer) before placing them all on the empty plate as his meal. This should be removed and the next child select his/her meal.

All the children can then glue their selected pictures onto their paper plates and use them in a "Healthy Eating" classroom display.

Past Topics