This Iowa School Is Using Heart Rate Monitors To Grade Kids In Gym Class

For most kids, P.E. class consists of physical exercise centered around a sport. The children in Dubuque, Iowa, have a different experience.

Earlier this month, the Dubuque Community School District purchased heart-rate monitors to strap on students in P.E. class. The monitors will transmit data to a web-based program to allow the teachers to track their students' progress.

Dubuque Schools Athletic and Wellness Director Amy Hawkins stopped by HuffPost Live on Thursday to talk about the new program, and what effects she expects it to have on her schools.

"We're trying to make it more fitness-based than game-based," Hawkins told host Nancy Redd. "We went and visited some other school districts, actually in the state of Iowa, and we found out that many school districts — like 10,000 school districts in the nation — are using Polar heart rate monitors, and about 2,000 are using the equipment that we just purchased."

The program hopes to track whether students are slacking in class or not.

Catch the rest of the clip above, and watch the full HuffPost Live conversation here.

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