PHS Digital Journalism Project: This Portland High School Class is Keeping Kids Active

Article by Barrett Brennan at Portland High School.

It is a bright and sunny summer day, you hear the birds singing, the warm sun against your skin as you are playing basketball with your best friends. These sunny days seem to be fading for many children in the United States. In 2023 children and their parents' experiences outside are vastly different. According to a survey by Business Wire, an American company that disseminates full-text press releases to news media, American children spend 35% less time playing outside freely than their parents did. 65% of parents surveyed said they played outside every day during their childhood, while only 30% of their children do the same today.

We are seeing the effects of today's children's lack of activity throughout their day in more than just their physical health. Generation Z has the highest rate of depression and other mental illnesses and this directly correlates to the lack of activity throughout the day. A staff member, whose name was not stated, of The Mayo Clinic talked about the correlation between depression and physical activity. “The links between depression, anxiety and exercise aren't entirely clear — but working out and other forms of physical activity can definitely ease symptoms of depression or anxiety and make you feel better. Exercise may also help keep depression and anxiety from coming back once you're feeling better.” This is a huge reason we have this recreational sports class as it is essential to keep kids active throughout the school day.

This problem was seen as obvious to Portland High School, especially Andy Pulling, a Health/Physical Education instructor at Portland High School who teaches Recreational Sports, an elective that provides students the opportunity to explore recreational and international sports as they relate to a healthy adult lifestyle, the activities include cycling, canoe/kayaking, spikeball, cricket, disc golf, etc. When asked the importance of keeping kids active throughout the day, he responded “I think it's incredibly important, I think I am a little bit biased here, but it is probably one of the most important things we should be doing in the education system, giving opportunities for activities throughout the day”

For some kids they don't have the same opportunity as other kids to do outdoor activities such as kayaking, canoeing or even riding a bike. Our city Portland Michigan is known for being the city of two rivers, but still there is a large amount of teens/children who have never got to experience using the rivers for activity. In a school wide survey conducted by myself, about 32% of the students at Portland High School have never used a man powered watercraft to travel down our two rivers. Recreational Sports gives kids who have maybe never experienced that an opportunity to experience a very important part of our town.

Laila Milbourne, a sophomore student at Portland High School who has taken Mr. Pulling’s Recreational Sports class, explained that since the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020 she had seen her activity decrease. Recreational Sports helped combat the lack of activity. When asked if she had noticed her mood change she said “I could see my mood get better throughout the day and just feeling more refreshed and less tired throughout the day, this class helped a lot”. Fellow sophomore Tyler Smith, who had also taken the class, had very similar responses. When asked about a change in his mood he said “I felt more motivated throughout the day while I took this class, I felt kind of refreshed after taking this class. Being active throughout the day definitely helped me mentally and physically”.

This class is a much needed elective for kids to experience our cities beautiful river, bike trails etcetera. There has been nothing but positive feedback for this class and many in the school would highly recommend taking this class as students have said this class helped their mental health and made them enjoy their day at school more.

This article is part of a series written by PHS Digital Journalism students taught by Ms. Chandra Polasek. The articles were written for posting on The Portland Beacon. All articles are original work of the students.