Sydney Payne, Ashley Collin and Grace Hornsby (pictured left to right above) are champions of stand-up school desks—desks that students can stand at instead of being forced to sit at for long periods of time. The seniors in the Sports Rehabilitation and Therapy Program at Live Oaks became believers in stand-up desks when they saw a podcast last October extolling their benefits.
The podcast said that encouraging and enabling students to stand during class may curb obesity, improve the environment for learning and may even help them avoid back and other debilitating and costly health issues later in life.
The Live Oaks trio adopted the stand-up desk movement as their required senior project and it has become a rewarding community service/collaboration project with Batavia Elementary. The girls hope to have six of the desks (which do come with stools) in three different fourth grade classrooms at Batavia Elementary by the end of the school year.
They have already had a couple of desks donated for their project and believe they are among the first to be used in any Ohio classroom. They are seeking business sponsorships for others and have also done fundraisers, with more planned.
Prof. Mark Benden is the first person the girls contacted to get information on stand up desks. An associate professor and director of the Texas A&M Ergonomics Center, Prof. Benden has conducted studies on stand up desks to learn their benefits. “This project by the students at Live Oaks is very exciting,” Prof. Benden responded in an email. “To date, most of the push for this type of change in schools has come from researchers, superintendents and a few early adopter teachers and parents.”
He said researchers initially began to see this as something to help get kids moving more for health reasons, but soon discovered that active kids perform and behave better in school, which improves the atmosphere for learning.
“To see it moving among the students themselves is very promising as that type of grassroots change is exactly what is needed to see a reduction in sedentary behavior during the school day.” Prof. Benden wrote. “Students working in other districts have conducted contests, produced rap songs and even written grants to receive money for or to communicate about standing desks. This is the first time that I have seen a student led research study with the intent to both increase awareness and potentially influence policy. Very impressive!”
“Stand Up Batavia: A Solution You Can Stand Behind” will also be the trio’s entry in the annual SkillsUSA Championships. SkillsUSA is a showcase for the best career and technical students in the nation, which starts with state competition in Columbus in April. Outstanding career tech students are recognized for their ability to present and design a display and the application of skills and education brought about through career and technical training.
“The showcase encourages career technical students to promote their schools’ career preparation program to their community and industry,” says Scott Proscia, Jr., the girls’ sports rehabilitation and therapy instructor. “They develop a learning-based project that will benefit their school, industry or community with a focus on their career preparation. They will then develop a display to use in their community to explain the project, their studies and its benefits.”
Ashley Collins, from Glen Este, plans to study exercise science at Ohio State University, and aspires to get her doctorate in physical therapy. She thinks her experience with the stand-up desk project can be the basis for research she continues throughout her academic years.
Grace Hornsby and Sydney Payne, both from Goshen, are undecided about their future career choices but know the education, research and collaborative experience they have gained on this project are impressive resume builders no matter what the future holds for them. Payne is also working as an assistant for a local chiropractor based on her experience at Live Oaks.
On Wednesday, March 25, the girls were scheduled to meet with the Clermont County Health Department and the local Collation for Activity and Nutrition. “We are presenting to help think of ways to promote the plan and raise money for our project,” Collins said.
Hornsby also made a connection with the Clermont County of Commerce, who put a link on its website about the project to spread the word and help raise money.
Each desk costs $435 and stools are $205. Total project cost is $11,520 to equip all three classrooms.
The girls calculated that the average student at Batavia Elementary School will sit in a classroom for 60,000 minutes during the school year—triple that of three decades ago.
“Stand up desks are ergonomically designed to get children upright and will promote burning an extra 350 calories per day,” they wrote in their project summary. “Sitting at the standard desk promotes bad posture and could lead to musculoskeletal ailments. Traditional sitting posture has been shown through laboratory results to produce an additional 60 pounds of stress on the spine. The duration of sitting has chronic musculoskeletal repercussions such as higher incidence of muscle strains, herniated disks, lumbar degeneration, and disc disease. Giving children access to the stand-up desk intervention will promote reduction of these chronic conditions and combat a future of chronic pain avoidance.”
The research shows that children with learning disabilities could be those who benefit most from this stand-up movement. In particular, students with Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder have difficulty sitting still, listening quietly, and concentrating. “Restricting these students to traditional desk contributes to an increase in their symptoms and disabilities, which may have behavior consequences,” their summary reads.
”The stand-up desks will improve their learning quality by giving them a space where they can fidget and release energy without disturbing the classroom environment.”
For more information and to find out how to donate to the project, go to www.standupbatavia.wordpress.com
-Live Oaks-
