Developing Your Own Simulation for Teaching Social Studies

Many students experience a personally significant loss of some nature during the school year. While some losses may appear trivial to adults, other losses are life-changing, such as the death of a loved one, and, compounded by normative developmental changes and transitions, may negatively impact students’ emotional well-being, behavior, and academic progress. In this article, the author discusses the issue of loss for children and adolescents and reviews possible approaches educators may use to provide support to loss-affected students.     

Initial hydration status, fluid balance, and psychological affect during recreational exercise in adults

There is little information on the impact of hydration status on the psychological response to exercise despite potential implications for adherence to an exercise programme and for overall health and fitness. We investigated initial hydration status, fluid balance, and psychological responses associated with a typical recreational exercise session in healthy adults. Fifty-two participants performed a freely chosen gymnasium-based exercise session at a fitness centre, with ad libitum access to fluids. Urine samples were collected on arrival for analysis of osmolality. Sweat loss was estimated from the change in body mass after correction for fluid intake and urinary losses. Subjective psychological ratings were recorded before and after exercise. Pre-exercise urine osmolality was above 900 mOsmol · kg(-1) (used as a threshold for hypohydration) in 37% of participants. Fluid intake during exercise was 390 ± 298 mL, while estimated sweat loss was 794 ± 391 mL. The percentage change from pre-exercise body mass was -0.62 ± 0.20%. Physically active adults who arrived to take part in exercise hypohydrated reported more negative changes in psychological affect in response to their subsequent freely chosen recreational exercise session than those classified as euhydrated prior to exercise (-0.2 ± 0.7 vs. 0.8 ± 0.7; P < 0.005).     

The effect of critical speed and exercise intensity on stroke phase duration and bilateral asymmetry in 200-m front crawl swimming

The main aim of this study was to determine the absolute temporal relationship between the power and recovery phases of the stroke cycle in front crawl swimming in response to progressive changes in exercise intensity that occurred before and after critical speed. A second objective was to determine whether intensity-related changes in the power/recovery phase relationship affects the bilateral symmetry of the stroke. Stroke parameters were recorded for each 25-m length during a progressive 200-m interval training set, in which eight (2 males, 6 females) national-level swimmers swam at intensities below, above, and at critical speed. The results demonstrated that substantial increases in stroke rate (P < 0.01) occurred at critical speed, and that these increases were related to a greater decrease in the duration of the power phase than the recovery phase (P < 0.01). The results also show that the degree of bilateral asymmetry was greater for the power phase than the recovery phase, and was inversely related to intensity in both phases of the stroke cycle. The findings of this study suggest that critical speed-related increases in stroke rate are an indirect consequence of increased force production in the power phase of the stroke, and that bilateral asymmetry is both intensity- and stroke-phase dependent.