By

Darlene J Marmol,   Port Townsend High School

Play:

Topics:

Physical Activity Participation, Student Leadership,  Other

Students in the resource room at the high school wrote a grant for a game called 9 Square in the Air. Their assignment was to bring other students out to play and sign up for Fuel Up to Play 60. The weather has been pretty iffy and we had some glitches along the way, but we had some nice successes. We recruited 5 extra students to be involved and one student who had a fear of speaking in public made 2 public service announcements on the PA system at school to invite students to participate!

How do you plan to make this Play last during the school year and beyond?

Students at the high school learned leadership skills and recruited others to join us. They will continue to play throughout the school year and then next year share the activity with the elementary school as a mentorship program.

What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

One student with a fear of public speaking invited the entire school to join us during the morning announcements over the PA system

How did students and adults work together as a team?

They developed a system for assembling the game , playing and then taking it down. Students all have adverse childhood experiences who have had problems relating to other students in the school. Giving them a leadership role allowed them to build self esteem and courage to speak to others and feel a high level of competency . The grant funding organization, Port Townsend Educational Foundation, was instrumental in funding the grant so we could work through the Dairy Council.