The Big Test: How We Experience Short-Term Stress
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Description:
In this activity, teachers will induce mild stress in students by announcing they are about to have a quiz that will be a major part of their grade. Once students learn that this is not true, they will describe their physical and mental changes in response to this stress.
Objectives:
Students will:
- Experience and describe a situation of short-term stress
- Record and analyze their physical and mental reactions to the stressful situation
- Make generalizations about how humans react to short-term stress, including that different people respond to stress in different ways
Relevant Standards:
This activity fulfills science and health education standards [PDF – 269 KB].
BAM! Body and Mind Resources:
- Feelin’ Frazzled…? — 10 suggestions for relieving short-term stress.
- Feeling Stressed Out? Find Out Why. — An interactive feature that teaches what short-term and long-term stress do to the body and how to cope with them.
