Let's Recap: Michael & Susan Dell Community Collaborative for Child Health's Summit on Physically Active Learning

**Update: Learn about the inspiring projects the 2015 Physically Active Learning grant awardees did in order to win here! **

On Saturday, May 9, 2015 the Michael & Susan Dell Community Collaborative for Child Health hosted their 3rd Annual Wellness Summit, with this year’s focus on physically active learning. Over 70 participants, including students, classroom teachers, PE specialists, school district leaders, out-of-school time (OST) leaders, and other child health and education stakeholders, attended the half-day summit at the Thompson Conference Center at University of Texas at Austin.

Christine Jovanovic, Co-Chair of the Collaborative, kicked off the summit activities, which began with a powerful keynote presentation from Dr. Bill Kohl, Professor of Epidemiology at the UT School of Public Health-Austin Regional Campus and leading scientist and author of the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans and the Institute of Medicine’s 2013 Educating the Student Body report.

Dr. Kohl discussed public health challenges facing the U.S. and beyond due to children’s’ inactivity, and dove into key strategies for promoting child physical activity. These strategies are based on a “whole of school approach”, which includes incorporating physical activity in the before, during and after school setting, and other opportunities such as outdoor learning, ensuring PE class and recess time, and promoting and supporting children’s active transport, among other opportunities.

Following Dr. Kohl’s presentation, participants broke out into sessions to explore the concepts of classroom-based learning, outdoor learning, and social/emotional learning. Breakout sessions were fun, hands-on and experiential- following the principles of ‘active learning.' Leaders of these sessions consisted of awesome central Texas school and OST program practitioners, including classroom teacher Laura De Leon of Del Valle ISD; physical education specialist Valerie Phillips of Round Rock ISD; outdoor learning specialists Anne Muller of Austin ISD, Pete Silvius of Seguin ISD, and Margaret Lamar of Children & Nature Network; and social/emotional learning and the arts educators and teaching artists Sarah Rinner of Creative Action and Ann Starr and Krissie Marty from Forklift Danceworks.

To further entertain attendees, a scavenger hunt was facilitated, poster presentations from 2015 Physically Active Learning PAL mini-grant recipients were displayed, and Latin American folk music band “Son Armado” played during the afternoon.

The Summit concluded with a recognition of the 12 Central Texas PAL mini-grant recipients and a recognition of Mr. Peter Cribb’s many years of service to coordinated school health via his leadership with the CATCH Program. To close out the event, Dr. Andrew Springer of the UT School of Public Health-Austin thanked the participants for their role in promoting children’s health and learning, and emphasized the importance of being “purposeful” in the incorporation of physical activity into children’s learning.

A special thanks to the St. David’s Foundation and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation for their generous support of the summit. Additional thanks to the YMCA, CATCH Global Foundation, and Flaghouse Publishing for providing physical activity incentives for participants.

With a mission to promote family, school, community partnerships for child health, the Community Collaborative for Child Health is a group of twenty community leaders from across Central Texas who represent schools and school districts, community-based child and adolescent health and development organizations, and faith-based organizations. 

Check out our video recap for more!