Cover lesson · PE · Year 8 · Beginner

Tracking heart rate data: one person, one week

DCF: Data and computational thinking → Data and information literacy

Name: Class: Date:

Cover teacher — you need no subject knowledge

Print: this sheet, one per pupil. The week of readings is printed below, so no computers are needed; the same figures are in heart-rate-week.csv if you are in a computer room.

Run: 5 min pupils find their own pulse and record one resting reading, sitting still · 10 min complete the recovery column · 10 min the three averages · 15 min plot the three lines · 10 min answer the interpretation questions.

Collect: this sheet. Nobody exercises today — pupils stay seated; the only measurement they take is a resting pulse. If any pupil cannot find their pulse, let them use the class average instead and move on. If a pupil says their heart feels like it is racing or skipping while sitting still, send them to the school's first aider.

What you are doing

A Year 8 pupil, Ffion, recorded her heart rate every day for a week: sitting still, straight after a three-minute step test, and again one minute later. You are going to work out how fast her heart recovered each day, plot all three sets of readings as lines, and explain what does and does not show up in one week of data.

Step 1 — your own resting pulse

Sit still for one minute. Put two fingers — not your thumb — on the inside of your wrist below the base of your thumb. Count the beats for 15 seconds and multiply by 4.

Beats in 15 seconds	× 4 =	My resting heart rate (bpm)

A normal resting heart rate is usually between 60 and 100 bpm. Write one sentence comparing your reading with Ffion's average once you have worked hers out.

Step 2 — Ffion's week

Recovery means the number of beats per minute her heart rate dropped in the first minute of rest: the "straight after" figure minus the "after 1 minute" figure. Fill in the last column.

Day	Resting (bpm)	Straight after the step test (bpm)	After 1 minute of rest (bpm)	What she did that day
Monday	74	158	118	PE lesson — circuits
Tuesday	72	152	110	Walk to school only
Wednesday	76	165	127	Football training after school
Thursday	77	160	125	Slept badly — 5 hours
Friday	73	150	106	Walk to school only
Saturday	70	146	100	Rest day
Sunday	69	154	112	Cycle ride with family
Average				All four averages come out as whole numbers

Step 3 — plot the week

Plot three lines and label each one: resting, straight after, after 1 minute. Join the points with straight lines.

Step 4 — what the data means

(a) On which day did Ffion recover fastest, and on which day slowest? Quote the recovery figures.

(b) Her resting line is almost flat across the week. Does that prove the training did nothing for her? Explain.

(c) Thursday breaks the pattern: her resting rate is the highest of the week and her recovery is the worst. Find the reason in the last column and write it as a sentence.

(d) A rough estimate of the fastest a heart can beat is 220 minus your age. Ffion is 13. Work out her estimated maximum, then work out what percentage of it she reached on Wednesday.

Step by step

5 min — Take your own resting pulse and record it in Step 1.
10 min — Fill in the recovery column for all seven days.
10 min — Work out the four averages. On a computer: =AVERAGE(B2:B8) and so on.
15 min — Plot the three lines, add the key and give the graph a title.
10 min — Answer (a) to (d) in full sentences.

Success criteria

I can calculate a recovery figure for every day and an average for each column, and my arithmetic is right.
I can plot three sets of readings on one pair of axes with a scale, a key and a title.
I can read a specific value off my own graph and quote it with its unit (bpm).
I can explain that one week of data is too short to prove a training effect, and name something other than fitness that changed the readings.
I can use a formula on my data (220 minus age) and express one value as a percentage of another.

If you finish early

Recovery could also be written as a percentage: beats recovered divided by the "straight after" figure. Work that out for Monday and Saturday and say which measure is fairer for comparing the two days.
Ffion took one reading per day. Design a way of recording that would show her recovery over three minutes rather than one, and say how many readings that needs.
Write the two sentences of advice you would give Ffion, based only on what is in this table. Be careful not to claim anything the data does not support.