Olympian and Black Sticks athlete Rose Keddell is challenging Primary and Intermediate School classes to a virtual mission to the Tokyo Olympic Games.
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The virtual mission uses students' daily fitness and physical education time to move their class from the south of Japan to Tokyo. Every student contributes to the class goal. The teacher very simply estimates and enters the daily distance covered by the whole class using their laptop or phone.
It is a challenge though, with the class as a whole needing to walk or run 25-30 kilometres each school day to get to Tokyo - but hey, when was getting to the Olympics ever easy?!
Students can see their daily class position on the mission path and follow their progress on Google Maps Street View. The mission can also be incorporated into teaching and learning by researching the famous Japanese milestones on your route. These include the Hiroshima Peace Park, the Tenjin Matsuri in Osaka, Nagoya Legoland and Mt Fuji. At each of these milestones the class gets recognition and information.
To see the mission follow this link. Only the teacher of the class can click the join button so show or tell them about the mission.
The mission will start on May 3rd (the start of Term 2) and you are aiming to be in Tokyo by July 30th, which is the end of Week 1 in Term 3 and the halfway mark of the Olympic Games. All classes who make it to Tokyo get an official NZOC Excellence Certificate and go in to win one of 15 Tokyo Olympian visits to the class, or 2 sets of NZ Team tee shirts and caps.