May is National Bike Month and Ocean City Primary School teacher Ms. Merritt is celebrating with her 1st grade class by completing a cross curricular bike study.
In 2016, Ms. Merritt received a grant from the Ocean City Education Foundation for six desk cycles. Merritt’s goal for this grant was to incorporate fitness and wellness into the academic curriculum, while increasing cognitive engagement and boosting “brain power”.
Last week the students used desk cycles provided through the OCEF Grant to compete in Merritt’s Miles of Math. The desk cycles are multi-sensory resources that use the computer to record distance. The focus of Merritt's Miles of Math was to spin as many miles as possible in a three-day period. This friendly competition required students to log miles, while incorporating addition through adding the cumulative miles each day.
On Friday, May 12th, the class was fortunate enough to have Ocean City Officials and city employees join them in the competition. Joining the competition were OCPD Chief Callahan, OCFD Chief Smith, Officer Jenn Elias, Lisa Rumer, Dave Allegretto and Ed Comby.
“It is important to me that my students become involved in the Ocean City community. Our school district receives awesome support from our local government and businesses. I wanted my students to watch the support in action. Additionally, it was great fun to see our chief of police, chief of fire and other local city employees engage and interact with the students in the classroom setting. This activity is one illustration of how learning can be both fun and meaningful.” – Carrie Merritt, 1
st Grade Teacher for Ocean City Primary School
National Bike Month was established in 1956 to demonstrate and support the benefits of bicycling. There are various reasons why bicycling advocates ride, including: to preserve their health, help the environment, get from place-to-place, or explore. To learn more:
http://bikeleague.org/bikemonth
