ADVENTURES WITH ERIN

Teacher uses pedal desks to increase physical activity

Erin Madison
emadison@greatfallstribune.com

My favorite thing about my job is how often it gets me out of the office.

I’ve gone hiking, skiing, biking, snowbiking and packrafting all in the name of journalism. After all, it’s hard to write about outdoor activities if you don’t experience them for yourself.

However, it’s also hard to write about outdoor activities, if you don’t take time to sit at a desk and write. That’s the other part of my job that sometimes isn’t as much fun. The writing I like; the sitting I don’t.

We live in an increasingly sedentary society. There is no shortage of studies showing the endless benefits of exercise, but more and more studies are also showing the dangers of sitting all day.

Kristi Knaub, a middle school teacher at Monforton School near Bozeman, is passionate about increasing classroom-based physical activity.

That passion was sparked when she attended a national conference where John Medina, a molecular biologist and author of the book “Brain Rules,” spoke about studies that link exercise and activity with increased brain function.

“Ever since I heard that, everything just made more sense,” Knaub said. “I started to think about what a classroom would look like if we could be moving instead of sitting.”

Knaub started giving her students “brain breaks,” chances to get up during class and move around.

Medina talked about treadmill desks, desks built over a treadmill so a person can walk on the treadmill while working at the desk.

“I still don’t quite see treadmill desks working in the classroom,” Knaub said.

But with a little more research, she found pedal desks. The desks, made by FitDesk, are a stationary bike with a seat and seat back.

“It has a platform that you can strap a laptop to or put a notebook on,” Knaub said. “They’re relatively inexpensive.”

The pedal desks run about $300 each, so Knaub started fundraising through the website DonorsChoose.org.

It took about a month to raise money for six desks, which have been in Knaub’s social studies classroom for about a month.

“When they first arrived, it was kind of like a new toy,” she said.

But even after the novelty of the bikes wore off, there were still students who always want to use them. Those students tend to be the ones who have a hard time focusing or have ADD or ADHD.

Where some of those students used to get out of their seats many times while trying to finish an assignment, they tend to stay seated on the bikes and get their work done, Knaub said.

“By being on the bike, they’re kind of locked in there,” she said. “They just pedal instead of getting out of their seats.”

Knaub is working on her master’s degree in education from Montana State University and designed a research project around the FitDesks. She plans to survey students on whether they see the bikes as a positive addition to the classroom. She also will give students a reading assessment under three conditions to see how the use of the bikes affects reading. A control group will take the test seated. Another group will take it while riding and a third group will take it after riding moderately for 10 minutes.

Only about 5 percent of middle school students get the recommended 60 minutes of exercise per day, Knaub said, and many schools are cutting physical education time.

“It’s now our responsibility as classroom teachers to incorporate physical activity throughout the day,” she said. “The idea of a quiet classroom where students sit and work all day is going to be a thing of the past in the next 10 years.”

Few adults get the recommended amount of daily physical activity. Just like kids at school, adults spend a good portion of their lives at work, and for many adults, myself included, that means a lot of time spent sitting.

I hope offices where people sit and work all day also soon become a thing of the past.

Reach Tribune staff writer Erin Madison at 406-791-1466 or emadison@greatfallstribune.com. Follow her on Twitter @GFTrib_EMadison.