JAY – The Jay Middle School will receive a Maine Cardiovascular Health Council Award Tuesday, June 5, recognizing teacher Mike Methvin’s efforts to improve students’ physical fitness by getting them more active.

Sandy Richard, Healthy Community Coalition program manager, nominated the school for the HeartHealthy Recognition Award.

She wrote in her nomination that the school is fortunate to have Methvin using innovative ways to increase his students’ physical activity level.

Methvin did a comparison from 1996 to 2006 and reported incredible improvement in the number of students who are able to complete a 1-mile run in under 12 minutes and an unbelievable decrease in the number of students who complete a 1-mile run in more than 12 minutes, Richard said.

At the beginning of the year, new Dance Dance Revolution equipment including a larger television and arcade pads and pedometers were bought and made available to all fifth-through-eighth-grade students at the middle school.

Dance Dance Revolution is an interactive video music game where players dance on top of a sensor pad, following on-screen visual cues to the beat of a popular song, Richard said.

The object is to match movements with the arrow cues on the screen.

Richard also credited Methvin with changing things around in his physical education classes when rising rates of obesity were being discussed.

Instead of spending so much time stretching, the students are asked to do three-quarters to 1 mile of running before every physical education class before they take up the lesson of the day, Richard wrote in her nomination.

Richard also praised other activities Methvin and the school introduced to get students more physically active.

School representatives will receive the award at a luncheon at The Hilton Garden Inn in Auburn during the 10th annual Governors’ Cardiovascular health Summit.