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Vertical lessons keep kids healthy

22 March 2006

HOW do you get schoolchildren to take more exercise? Why, take away their chairs, of course.

A team at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, has built a “chairless classroom” to encourage children to move around more. They hope the idea will help in the fight against childhood obesity.

Last week the team borrowed a group of 10 to 12-year-olds from a nearby school, and taught them their normal curriculum in a specially converted classroom. The children were given motion sensors to wear and allocated vertical work spaces to which they could attach laptops with wireless internet connections. They were…

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