Marathon+Project

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=This is a student created page: = = How does the temperature of a Marathoner's body compare to the = = ambient temperature during a race? =

November 2, 2008. . . Mr. LaPorte runs in the New York Marathon while wearing a package of sensors created by his seventh grade students. Why? They are collecting data about his circulatory system as part of their science class studies. This page will present our findings and explain how we did our experiment using our new EETT Microprocessor Lab.

=What is the New York Marathon? =



Every November since 1970, the city of New York holds one of the largest marathons in the world. Runners from all over the world come to participate in this huge event. While the first marathon in 1970 had only 127 participants, over 38,000 participants joined together to run on this past November 2, 2008. If you want to check out the official NYC Marathon website, please click on the provided link:

http://www.nycmarathon.org/home/index.php

Students: If you wish to earn extra credit, take one of the subtitles below and write a few paragraphs for it. Then submit it to Mr. Rossi and he will post it.

How does this project apply to our classroom studies?
The New York Marathon helped us with our studies at school in may ways. We studied cell respiration in science and Mr. LaPorte’s run requires heavy duty cell respiration. When we used the microprocessor to find Mr. LaPorte’s skin and ambient temperatures we recorded it on a graph. We had to transfer the microprocessor units to degrees Celsius. This required us to learn math equations. The equations used algebra and numbers.

This also showed us how exercise and other things effects our skin and ambient temperatures. When Mr. LaPorte ran the marathon he injured his leg. This affected his skin temperature as well as our ambient temperature sensor. The aid station had to wrap ice around his leg, which made the ambient temperature sensor go down. The ice and the injury slowed Mr. LaPorte down which made his skin temperature go down too.

What is a microprocessor and how did we use one in our project?


A Microprocessor is an integrated circuit that contains the entire central processing unit of a computer on a single chip. We used a microprocessor in our project to find and record the ambient temperature around Mr. LaPorte, as well as his skin temperature while running in the marathon. The red and green squares in the picture are the microprocessor. Mr. LaPorte wore the temperature sensor underneath his arm while he ran. The white wire in the picture above is this sensor. Both sensors recorded temperatures every five minutes and stored them in memory. When we got the microprocessor back, we converted the data with our equations (It was fun).

What could we do next with this experiment?
In our next experiment, we could test Mr.LaPorte again in another marathon. We could gather the information from him in his next marathon, and enter it into another graph and table for comparison to our last one. With the information entered we could study even more results and try to replicate our data. This information could be very useful to our grade and class, and I am hoping that we do, in fact get the chance to look at more results from running in a marathon.

The marathon results from Mr.LaPorte have been very useful. My class (The Green Group) made a huge graph showing the marathon results. When the 7th grade went over the information, we found that it was extremely accurate to how Mr.LaPorte ran The New York Marathon. The graph shows how fast he was going at any given time, and where he was at that time during the race.

Many great things came from this graph and such knowledge is very useful. We learned how the body temperature of a person can be much warmer than the air surrounding them, and how taking a persons temperature during a hard work out can lead to many great discoveries. In the future, we might even be able to create more sensors that measure bodily functions such as heart rate, or blood oxygen level. The following article will appear in the Ashford Citizen in December, 2008.

December 3, 2008
Running a marathon is considered an ultimate test of the human body’s stamina, but exactly what happens to a runner during the standard 26.2-mile course? How does a marathon runner prepare his/her body? These are some of the questions that were presented to the seventh graders at Ashford School as part of their study of the human circulatory system.

In order to find answers, the seventh graders decided to study one particular marathoner, David LaPorte. Mr. LaPorte, a special education teacher at Ashford School, is also an avid runner and a second year participant of the famed New York Marathon. Using a state technology grant, students built microprocessor-controlled sensors that measured and recorded skin temperature every five minutes. Mr. LaPorte agreed to wear the sensors this past November 2nd when it took readings during his three hour and fifty-one minute jaunt through the five boroughs of New York City.

When he returned, students retrieved the raw data and began the process of converting it for analysis. This required the use of many algebraic concepts that would challenge even the advanced student, but the idea was to generate motivation by offering data about a real event and a real person. It was a teacher’s delight to watch students blurt out, “Ah hah, now I see how that works!” while diligently working on a rather lengthy equation designed to convert computer units into Celsius.

After the conversions were completed and a large format graph of the entire race was synthesized, a team meeting with Mr. LaPorte was held. He was able to answer questions about his experience and offer some hypotheses that might explain the dips and peaks in our graph. For more information and access to student responses, visit the class website at: ashfordg7science.wikispaces.com.


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