Health literacy is encompasses a wide range of skills from the individual. As a result the definitions offered are fairly broad. The Canadian Public Health Association suggests it is the “ability to assess, understand and act on information for health”, while the Canadian Council on Learning defines it as the degree to which we are able to access health information for healthy decision-making and to maintain our basic health.
Daily Physical Activity (DPA) refers to provincially mandated initiatives targeting concerns about inactivity and poor health among Canadian children. DPA involves regular and consistent opportunities for physical activity in order to change student attitudes towards participating in physical activity. It has also been linked to higher academic achievement, readiness to learn and improved classroom behaviour. DPA can be implemented during instruction time, but is different from PE in that it is not a curricular subject in and of itself.
Congratulations to the group this week. Liz, Cheryl, Mary and Rob, the lesson was so much fun. Upon first glance, physical and health literacy seems like a hard topic to create a PE lesson plan around, however, you all did a great job incorporating both topics into the lesson. The creativity of the warm-up and cool down was awesome and the instant activity was so much fun as well. All in all it was great to have so much choice and flexibility within the lesson.
I never really thought about health and physical literacy before this course. These concepts are an integral part of the foundation of physical education and life as well. It is clear that health literacy has a symbiotic relationship with physical literacy. Being a balanced person and understanding how to be literate and take care of one’s own self is important for children to understand. Physical education is no longer just about sport but about the child or person as a whole. Health literacy encompasses more than I thought and learning about the many aspects of health literacy was enlightening. The lesson made me take into consideration how literate I am in both health and physical literacy and how I can change that.
UBC Health Outdoor and Physical Education
