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ORLANDO, Fla. (Sept. 3, 2008) -- GeoFitness Inc., a leading provider of products and programs for education and physical fitness, is expanding on a pilot program that began last fall with third grade students who improved math scores at Orlando’s Bonneville Elementary School.
GeoFirness is a curriculum-based fitness and education company that creates movement and exercise mats for people of all ages, according to president and founder Dr. Debby Mitchell.
The program at Bonneville uses GeoFitness’ Meaningful Movement Mats. The mats – which have colorful numbered boxes, symbols, patterns and the alphabet – are used with instructional DVDs, music CDs, curriculum guides, movement dice and task cards to aid in learning, said Mitchell, a physical education specialist, author, presenter and researcher, and an associate professor at UCF.
When taught correctly students receive the benefit of academics, brain stimulation, exercise and core building, she said.
Last fall, students at Bonneville participated in 30 minutes of what is called the "Geo Learning Lab" every two days, according to Principal Dr. Kimberly Bias.
The sessions – part of the SPA (Social & Physical Activity/Academics) program – allowed teachers to focus on any skill they chose while fulfilling the amount of physical activity required by state law.
Third-grade teacher Cindy Johnson had her students focus on math skills while using the GeoMats. The result: math scores improved by 30 percent.
“We are excited about the opportunity to provide GeoFitness on a school-wide level this year,” Bias said. “With the 150-minute physical education mandate we have to think even more creatively on providing daily fitness without impacting the limited time available to meet other mandates.”
While Bonneville was a pilot for the program, Mitchell said she’s had tremendous interest from numerous Orange County schools to start up similar programs.
“We recently did a presentation for 150 classroom teachers at the Orange County Public Schools Staff Development Day,” Mitchell said. “We were absolutely overwhelmed by the interest we received.”
GeoFitness is a client of the University of Central Florida Incubation Program in the Central Florida Research Park.
