On any given day, students in Gwinnett County Schools do some academic multitasking in gym class.

 

Third-graders might solve a math problem that tells them how many pushups they need to do. A fourth-grade class might continue classroom work on reading comprehension in the gym by reading a card that describes an action they need to perform to complete an activity or play a game, instead of the teacher telling them what to do.

 

Chuck Truett, director of health and physical education for Gwinnett County Schools, said the schools use this strategy to help students apply what they learn in other parts of the school day in the gym.

 

"It's a subtle integration," he said. "The kids might not even realize they're learning and that's exactly what we want to happen."

 

This kind of curriculum integration is happening more and more in school systems across Georgia and across the U.S. According to a report in the  New York Times, 45 states and the District of Columbia have adopted education standards recommending that "teachers in a wide variety of subjects incorporate literacy instruction and bring more 'informational text' into the curriculum." States like Georgia have extended these standards to physical education and have encouraged schools and teachers to fit math, science and vocabulary into P.E. classes.

 

Bringing these other subjects into the gym might seem incongruous, but research suggests that they are a natural fit. Studies have shown that physical activity correlates with better attendance, fewer disciplinary problems and can help children retain more of what they learn. Combining lessons and physical activity also gives kids the chance to be active even as schools feel the need to squeeze recess out of the school day to make room for the classroom time needed to improve test scores.

 

Incorporating physical activity also offers schools another way of fighting childhood overweight and obesity, which plagues 40 percent of kids in Georgia. And it can help children reach the 60 minutes of daily physical activity recommended by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for young people ages 6 to 17.

 

The Georgia Department of Education doesn't require schools to integrate physical activity into their classroom curriculum, according to Matt Cardoza, director of communications for the Department of Education.

 

"Our state P.E. standards do indicate guidance to schools on curriculum and do encourage them to integrate [P.E. and other subjects]," Cardoza said. "Many school systems do."

 

Truett said Gwinnett teachers in "non-core areas," such as gym and music teachers, choose to use their subjects as an opportunity to help students grasp concepts they learn in other classes. The integration happens in classes from kindergarten to high school.

 

"They can learn language arts through movement or math by playing an instrument," he said. "It brings concreteness to those abstract ideas they're learning."

 

So far, the school system has no hard data showing what they're doing is working, and teachers aren't required to integrate P.E. with their lessons. But Truett said more teachers are working on bringing physical activity into their classrooms to benefit their students.

 

"We just want to make it [physical activity] a normal part of their day," he said.