North Coast
Regional Award Winner
Regional Award Winner
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Cobb Mountain Elementary submitted the following three essays for consideration of the Governor's Challenge Competition Grand Prize: Essay 1 - Commitment to Promoting Healthy Eating on Campus Eating healthy is learned by students in our ever-expanding school garden. Volunteers help students raise organic vegetables and fruits from seed. Like characters in the Little Red Hen, students enjoy planting, tending, preparing, and eating organic lettuce, radish, carrots, peas, asparagus, and squash which they helped produce. Sutter Lakeside Hospital partnered with Cobb to establish the “Healthy Kids Are Contagious” program. Physical fitness, wellness, healthy food choices, and the healing power of water are promoted. Students learn water keeps lungs moist to allow more oxygen into their brains and enables brain signals easier travel. If you have a headache, students learn they are probably dehydrated and need to drink water. In fact, students learn if they are thirsty, they waited too long to drink water and are already dehydrated. Walk into classrooms and you’ll see bottles of water on students’ desks and hear students being encouraged to drink water. Cobb removed all vending machines from campus and water is our school drink. Students learn brain cells need oxygen and glucose for optimal learning and eating fruits boosts short-term memory. Students read labels to think about what they are putting into their bodies and to choose foods that give them nutrition with less fat, sugar, and salt. Since the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, students were challenged every trimester to commit to one small change by making healthier beverage and food choices. PTO provides students with healthy, glucose-rich snacks, and water, so students can perform at their optimal level during STAR Tests. Parents support our class parties with healthy fruits and vegetables as treats. Students’ weekly health, wellness, and fitness goal sheets were sent to parents. Parents often commented how their families were making healthier life choices based on their child’s individual goals. Essay 2 - Support of Students’ Physical Activity and Fitness Students learn how important movement and physical fitness are for cognitive/mind development, generating positive emotions, arousing attention, memory, spatial perception, cognitive functions, and increasing students’ ability to listen. Exercise increases the amount of oxygen in the blood, which flows into the brain and enhances cognitive performance. The interplay of movement and learning is evident as teachers encourage movement for better concentration and connectivity during lessons. For example, students act out new WordMaster words and create movements to demonstrate the words. This kinesthetic movement creates lasting memories for students. Furthermore, students become aware of their physical presence, spatial relationships, breathing, and of timing and rhythm. Parents, staff, and students painted an alphabet, number-line, hundreds charts, ten-frames, coordinate grids, circles with degrees on our blacktop so students could experience gross-motor learning. Teachers ask questions and students run to the correct answers. This gives students concrete physical experiences to connect new concepts in their long-term memories. Students studied cardiovascular health (In a Heartbeat), hygiene (Flu Crew to the Rescue), spine health (Back in Action), and emotional/psychological health (Create Your Health). Fitness trainers supported students through the Fitnessgram Test, teaching students how to improve their scores and set personal fitness goals. A Walking/Running Club for students, parents, and staff was established. Awarding foot tokens for completed miles and marathons. Six of our students supported each other and together completed multiple marathons. Likewise, in support of our fitness program, sixth graders lead exciting Field Day team-building events. The two-person and four-person board walking relay, interlocking elbow relay, Sponge Tag, Blind-fold Obstacle Course, River Crossing, Magic Carpet Ride, Shrinking Blanket Stand, Human Knot, Hula Hoop Pass, and Gigantic Marbles all required physical agility, higher-order thinking skills, problem-solving, and cooperation to be successful. Essay 3- Need For a New Fitness Center Who would teach students physical education in a classroom? Every winter and rainy day Cobb teachers would and do. It is a struggle at Cobb to meet our indoor physical fitness needs. A multi-use room serves as cafeteria, theater stage, music room, and occasional fitness center. Fitness classes are scheduled around breakfast, lunch, music, performances and the associated set-ups, take-downs, and clean-ups. A Fitness Center would enable us to hold classes every day even during inclement weather when it’s too dangerous to go outside. The Cobb community has no access to any fitness facilities. The center would be available in the evenings as a recreation and fitness facility for over 5,000 members of our mountain community. We are a Title 1 school and many of our parents cannot afford the time or expense associated with driving long distances to take their children to various intramural activities offered down the mountain. Many students do not participate in any fitness activities outside of school. A fitness facility would enable students to participate in physical education classes that would increase their understanding of physical well-being and lay a foundation for their life-long wellness. Cobb is located on Highway 175 and there are no sidewalks for walking or biking. Furthermore, we are blessed with cougars which are often seen near our campus making it dangerous for our students to exercise independently outside. If students do not have a chance for fitness at school, they will not be getting any exercise after-school. A fitness center would give us the much needed space and inspiration to replace our teacher and student-sewn bean bags which are used for playing catch with our Clorox and milk containers. And, we could replace our donated carpets used for sit-ups, push-ups, rolls, and cartwheels with padded mats. |
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