Year 13 PE Research Assignment

1. Year 13 PEResearch Assignment Critically examine a current physical activity event or trend or issue and explain in detail its impact on New Zealand society.

2. What do we need to do? Students are required to produce an essay of 1500 to 3000 words on a topic of their choice. Using the process of critical examination

3. What can the topics be? Essay topics must be a current physical activity event, trend or issuethat has an impact on New Zealand Society

4. Some examples of topics • Adventure tourism • Obesity • The impact of technology on performance, Is it fair? • Adrenaline sports or Xtremesports • The Olympics a range of possible issues • Sexism in sport • Drop off in participation in activity • Cotton wool kids • Fad Diets

5. Adventure Tourism

6. Obesity

7. Technology and Performance

8. Extreme Sports

9. More Extreme Sports

10. The Olympics

11. Sexism in Sport

12. Drop off in activity

13. Fad Diets

14. Cotton Wool Kids

15. Cotton Wool Kids as an example (1) • Otago Daily Times Sat, 13 Sep 2008 • Schools are banning tag and bullrush. Parents are stopping their children from climbing trees. Kim Dungey asks what's going on.

16. Should this be stopped?

17. Cotton Wool Kids (2) • As a girl, Melissa Bremner would often disappear for hours on end but the Dunedin mother would "have a fit" if her own boys proposed doing the same. • "You need to know these days where they are," she says. • "It's a sad fact." • Like other parents, Bremner struggles with how to keep her children safe while letting them take risks and have adventures.

18. Cotton Wool Kids (3) • A recent study in the United Kingdom showed children were less likely to play outside than their parents were when they were growing up. • Half of children aged 7 to 12 were not allowed to climb a tree without adult supervision and 17% had been banned from playing tag . • Without an adult present, a third were not allowed to ride a bike to a friend's house and 42% were not allowed to play at their local park. • However, three-quarters of children were allowed to surf the Internet unsupervised.

19. Can internet surfing be dangerous ?

20. Cotton Wool Kids (4) • Safety concerns have also seen some schools ban traditional childhood activities like lunchtime football, snowball fights, cartwheels and handstands because they are deemed too dangerous. • One school in the UK prohibited pupils from doing the backstroke in swimming lessons because they might bump into somebody, while another in California banned tag because there is a "victim" or "it", which creates a self-esteem issue.

22. Cotton Wool Kids (5) • A ban on bullrush in some New Zealand schools moved one principal to complain that boys are missing out on crucial rough-and-tumble in a "feminised" school system that does not allow them to let off steam.

23. Cotton Wool Kids (6) • Critics of the cotton-wool culture say we are rearing our children in captivity, their habitat shrinking almost daily. • Playing games like tag helps children learn to negotiate rules and resolve disputes, they claim. • Not only that, but limiting adventurous play when we are worried about childhood obesity seems ironic.

24. Is obesity really a problem?

25. Cotton Wool Kids (7) • Steve Brown is horrified that many schools are now putting camps in the "too hard" basket, believing there are too many rules to adhere to. • Young children do not have to do adrenalin-pumping activities like abseiling or kayaking that are governed by regulations and should get to do "back-to-basics stuff" like sleeping in a tent, damming a creek and cooking fritters over a fire: "There are no rules about tents, about fires, about freedom camping or climbing trees".

26. Cotton Wool Kids (8) • In an attempt to protect children from any potential harm, we have banned pies from school canteens, created exam systems that nobody fails and made the world so "clean" that our immune systems never properly develop.

27. Cotton Wool Kids (9) • Ian Grant says after he spoke on the issue recently, he was told of two schools that had banned running, not just in corridors but anywhere on the school grounds. • And after a child was tragically killed on a jungle gym, climbing equipment everywhere was lowered, when the mats underneath could "just have been made spongier".

28. Is this an extreme sport?

29. Cotton Wool Kids (10) • Grant says society is turning fathers into "male mothers" obsessed with safety instead of adventure. • While mothers can provide adventure too, fathers take an "edgier" approach: "When a mother goes into a park, she naturally thinks, 'How can I make sure my children are safe?' whereas dads go in thinking, "What crazy things can we do here?'."

30. Cotton Wool Kids (11) • So how do families find a balance? • Experts agree that parents need to identify real dangers without preventing children from exploring. • Ian Grant says children should be taught to take "smart risks", weighing up the best and worst things that might happen.

31. Cotton wool kids An Example of an issue that is global but also impacts New Zealand Society

32. Where could you research information Internet Books , The Library Journal articles, use Google Scholar Newspaper and Magazine articles TV Documentaries Personal research e.g. interviews

33. Examples of article titles found using Google Scholar search of Cotton Wool Kids You can't wrap them up in cotton wool!’ Constructing risk in young people's access to outdoor play Kids need the adventure of 'risky' play Contemporary patterns and trends in physical activity in New Zealand children and adolescents

34. Understanding Attainment Levels

35. Levels of attainment What do we need to do to aim for Excellence?

36. Achievement Examine a current physical activity event or trend or issue and explain its impact on New Zealand society.

37. Achievement with Merit Examine in detail a current physical activity event or trend or issue and explain its impact on New Zealand society.

38. Achievement with Excellence Critically examine a current physical activity event or trend or issue and explain in detail its impact on New Zealand society.

39. Examine for Achieved Could involve: researchingand analysing the event, trend or issue as appropriate and explaining the event, trend or issue.

40. Examine in detail for Merit Could involve: researchingand analysing with depth or breadth the event, trend or issue as appropriate, explainingthe event, trend or issue from your and others’ perspectives.

41. Critically Examine for Excellence Involves critical analysis, evaluation and reflection, all of which are based on the process of critical thinking. examining, questioning, evaluating and challenging taken-for-granted assumptions about issues and practices

42. Critically Examine continued e.g. relevant socio-cultural factors and/or biophysical principles and their relationship to the event/trend/issue are considered in depth.

43. The first step Research information available on a range of topics. Then decide what topic really interests you that has a range of information available from a wide range of sources

44. Step 2 Once you have determined the general focus of your research topic. Write out a range of possible options related to that research topic

45. Step 3 Decide what options you like best and show them to Mr Storrie so that he can approve your topic before you charge ahead.

46. Step 4 Begin the process of researching a wide range of quality information that will enable you to work towards an excellence level of attainment.

47. More to come next time Be the best you can be.