Dunn will apply her research experience of studying health and stress states in astronauts to a new domain: middle school physical education (PE) classrooms. 

She became interested in this area when a friend from her hometown in Sebring, FL, Jason Biance, asked for guidance on developing a health initiative for schools in his county. Biance had become concerned about local students’ fitness after reading the book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, by John J. Ratey and Eric Hagerman.

“I helped Jason develop his idea for this health initiative and make it into a rigorous research study that is assessing the impact of wearables on student physical fitness and mental health, including stress levels and mood changes,” said Dunn. The Fit Highlands Initiative project has been approved by the Purdue Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the Highlands County school board, where Sebring is located.

The Jaycees Club of Highlands County is providing wrist-worn wearable devices to a middle school PE class for heart-rate monitoring to promote fitness training.

“This provides researchers with the opportunity to study the behavioral health and academic performance impacts of introducing wearables into a PE class,” explained Dunn.

“In addition to the heart rate data collected during PE class time, this Wearables in Education research study will use a physical activity questionnaire at the beginning and the end of the semester, and a weekly questionnaire to compare health, stress, and mood states during the school year,” she added. “Also, at the end of the semester, Purdue researchers will acquire from the school’s administration the pre- and post- fitness testing measures from PE class and student academic records from this semester.”

How does this project relate to Industrial Engineering?

“Stress and chronic disease are systemic problems in society today. IEs see the big picture and want to address problems from the root cause,” explained Dunn. “If more students are given the opportunity to learn stress management from a young age, then over time investments in the community with initiatives like Fit Highlands…will have a large-scale impact on reducing health care costs and improving quality of life.”

Dunn plans to analyze and publish the results and to share it with other schools who want to monitor student heart rates in their PE classes. She wants to expand the program to other middle schools in Highlands County, and even train high school students to gather the data.

“Then we will have middle school students wearing the devices and high school students analyzing health and performance data,” she said. “This will be a great opportunity for high school students to learn some basic skills in programming and statistics that can help them prepare for university.”

Dunn would also like to see some friendly competition between schools in Florida and Indiana with this project. In the long term, her goal is to improve quality of life and reduce health care costs.

The United States Junior Chamber (Jaycees) gives young people between the ages of 18 and 40 the tools they need to build the bridges of success for themselves in the areas of business development, management skills, individual training, and community service. 

Writer: DeEtte Starr, starrd@purdue.edu