Healthy Minds, Healthy and Giving Hearts

All local elementary schools are offering heart-healthy activities and lessons in honor of American Heart Month this February. But what does that mean and how does it benefit students? 

While activities vary from school to school, most of the Newberg-Dundee elementary schools are celebrating the superstar of our circulatory system with the American Heart Association’s Kid Heart Challenge (KHC). Many people know the KHC is a fundraiser for children with congenital heart defects. It’s also common knowledge in most school communities that KHC involves some health lessons and physical activities. 

But the thing most people don’t know about this fundraiser is the sheer scale and extent of its fundraising and curriculum — as well as the incredible impact the experience has on students.

In the 2022-23 fiscal year, 15,000 schools in the United States participated in the Kids Heart and American Heart Challenges, with the 930,000 participating students raising $76 million that year alone. That’s impressive, but there are also many learning opportunities for students about physical health, how the human body works, and giving back. 

“It’s about helping people, and I like to help people,” Dundee Elementary School first-grader Oliver Hall said. 

In terms of lessons in health and the inner workings of the human body, at Dundee, PE Teacher Bryant Quinn led one of the coolest KHC offerings, an obstacle course representing the human circulatory system. 

“It’s a way for the kids to learn about the heart while also using their hearts as they go through the course,” Quinn said.

The circulatory system is a complex thing to represent with gym equipment, but the KHC does it well.

• First, how the heart works: It pumps blood to the lungs to get oxygen and then moves oxygenated blood through arteries to the rest of the body, and veins carry oxygen-poor blood back to the heart to start over. 
• Second: how the KHC brings that to life in an obstacle course: 
• There are red (lots of oxygen) or blue (less oxygen) mats, barriers, and balls. Blood is always red but looks different through your skin and is a little paler with less oxygen in it. 
• Students, who must act like blood cells sweeping through the circulatory system, carry a red ball or a blue one to represent how much oxygen they have. 
• They move through barriers including tunnel-shaped mats and hurdles that represent arteries. They also do sit-ups, pushups, and jump roping, and they roll on scooter boards to add more fun and health benefits to the course.

Before his students could transform into blood vessels, Quinn explained how the course represented the way the heart works. He also laid down some safety rules.

“Do you think it would be a good thing if we all start at the same place at the same time?” Quinn asked them, gesturing toward the obstacle course.

“Nooooo,” his students called out.

“That would be a blood clot,” he told them.

While the obstacle course may only last a week, Quinn and Bryanna Harris, who is student teaching at Dundee, also have spent the month teaching science and personal health.

“We only have one heart, and we need to take care of it: sleep, eat well, and do physical activity,” said Harris, who also teaches PE part-time at Ewing Young.

Fortunately, the KHC offers incredible lessons in how the heart works and how to take care of it. Besides that, it’s a fundraiser that brings in millions each year and offers a powerful lesson in the value of giving back. Of course, for energetic kiddos, the best part is that the Kids Heart Challenge, especially the obstacle course, is simply fun. 

“We can run!” said Dundee second-grader Dannimae “Danger” Dalton, who rushed off to expend some energy on the course before the KHC (and its obstacle course) went away for another year.