Season Ending Injury

The students are introduced to the human muscular, skeletal, circulatory and nervous systems through lecture and in class discussion. The students are then broken down into groups of three or four. They are allowed to choose from the roles of athlete, doctor, reporter and coach. Each group member must occupy a role. They are then randomly assigned a sports related injury. The group must decide on a sport in which this injury may occur and research the injury. They then must write a newspaper style sports report to show their research. The students are then asked to script out and story board a minimum five minute long sports report in which all members of the group must speak. They are asked to discuss the injury and how it occurred in addition to treatment, rehabilitation and the future of the athlete’s career.

The students use our schools Flip Video camera to film the injury and accompanying interviews for the sports report. They then use iMovie to edit the videos with background sound effects, music and additional picture and video resources from the internet. The goal is to create a well rounded visually stimulating explanation of the body systems affected and the way the body reacts during the injury and subsequent recovery. The challenge is the accuracy and realism of the injury and recovery. The students collaborate with group mates and eventually share their work with the class on the educational networking site Edmodo.

The lesson allows the students to think of the anatomy and physiology of the human body from a practical point of view. It also allows them to create knowledge through discovery learning and cooperative group learning.