Place two fingers gently on the side of your neck or on the inside of your wrist. Can you feel a soft thump? That is your pulse: your heart beating.
Now notice your breathing. Quiet or busy? Here is today's wonder: does exercise change our pulse and our breathing?
Today's words: pulse (the beat you feel each time your heart pumps). Breathing rate (how many breaths you take in one minute). Oxygen-delivery team (heart and lungs working together to move oxygen round the body).
When you move hard, your muscles need more oxygen. What do you think the heart and lungs do about that?
Our wonder is whether exercise changes our pulse and breathing. In pairs, choose the one-minute activity you will test: steady step-ups, high-knee marches, or star jumps.
On your Investigation Journal page, write your testable question in this shape: Does one minute of [our activity] change our pulse and breathing rate per minute?
Then write what you think will happen to both numbers after the activity, and why.
Watch how we time and count. We count pulse beats for 15 seconds, then multiply by 4 to get beats per minute. We do the same for breaths. We take each reading twice and use the average.
The timer on the board will help us keep every count fair.
Work in pairs. You each measure your own pulse and breathing. Your partner helps watch the timer and check the multiply-by-4 step.
Who is measured: every number you write is for you (the person whose body you are testing). If you should not exercise, you time and record for your partner only.
1. Sit still. Measure your resting pulse twice (15 seconds × 4 each time) and write the average beats per minute.
2. Measure your resting breathing twice the same way. Write the average breaths per minute.
3. When the class timer starts, everyone who can exercises together for one full minute, each pair doing the activity they chose (step-ups, high-knee marches, or star jumps) at a steady pace.
4. Straight away, measure your own pulse twice and breathing twice again. Average each pair of readings.
Record every per-minute average on your Investigation Journal page.
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