|
Healthy
Hearts (Grade Levels: 4 - 7)
Concepts Overview
| Healthy Hearts | Comparing Calories
| Medicine and You
| Answers
|
More Math Concepts
Your heart plays an important
role in your health. The heart moves oxygen and other nutrients to all
the different parts of the body and helps carry away the waste products.
Here are a few activities to get us thinking about our hearts.
1. Do you think
your heart has beaten a billion times?
2. One’s heart
rate is usually reported in beats per minute. Take your
pulse and figure out how many times your heart beats
in 10 or 15 seconds. Use this to figure out your resting
heart rate in beats per minute.
3. At this
rate, how many times does your heart beat in one day?
4. Using your
rate, estimate how long it would take for your heart
to beat a billion times.
5. Estimate
the number of times your heart has beaten. (Answers
will vary. Students need to determine the number of
years and days they have been alive and use their rates
to calculate the number of heart beats.)
6. How many
times do you think your heart will beat in your lifetime?
When we exercise,
our heart rate increases. The American Heart Association
has some guidelines for heart rates and exercises for
adults, which we will use even though we are not all
adults yet.
7. The American
Heart Association has a value called average maximum
heart rate. Find this value by taking 220 and subtracting
your age. What is your average maximum heart rate?
8. When you
exercise, you should try to have your heart rate in
the target heart rate zone. This zone is between
50% and 75% of your average maximum heart rate. What
is your target heart rate zone?
9. Jump up
and down for a full minute. When you are finished, immediately
take your pulse and determine your heart rate. What
percentage of your maximum average heart rate is your
exercising heart rate? Did you achieve your target heart
rate zone?
| 