High-Tech OLYMPICS

High-Tech Olympics

Olympic Series

By Nick Hunter

Heinemann Library, 2012

ISBN #9781410941213

Grades 3-5

Nonfiction

"In the Olympic stadium, three athletes stand on the medal podium. They wear medals around their necks, a bronze medal for the athlete who finished third, silver for second, and gold for the Olympic champion. The athletes have proved they are the best in the world."

Winning a medal at the Olympics takes skill, dedication, and hard work. But without technology, Olympic athletes are at a distinct disadvantage. High-Tech Olympics identifies the variety of technology used to improve the performance of athletes in their sports through health, clothing, and tools used in their individual sports. Divided into different sports, the book tells of the uses technology has provided in that sport. Individual sidebars give additional information about sports and technology in brightly colored boxes, including some para-Olympic information. Also mentioned is how technology has helped limit the tools when they grew too helpful to be safe.

Large photos with captions support the thorough text and later chapters include cheating, the future of technology, drug testing, and the limits of technology. Back matter has an Olympic record spread for different sports and how technology has changes, and index, and a glossary.

As a long time Olympics lover, this book was a fascinating and fun read. Want to include more technology information in your class, home, or library? This book is a wonderful way to do so and is timely with the 2012 Olympics taking place this summer inLondon. Wish you could be there? Read this book!

Activity 1

Introduce the metric system by looking up the units. Then look up the lengths of some of the running races in the Olympics. Convert the metric units toU.S.standard units. Discuss which system is easier to use!

Steve Spangler's site has some more about technology and the Olympics.

The pictures on this page show the running event lengths.

See more events with metric measures here.

This site has good information about the metric system.

This site has information about conversions. Choose your method.

Activity 2

Explore the technology of one Olympic event and identify ways it has changed, helped, or improved the sport.

National Science Standards: Interdependence of Science, Engineering, and Technology; Influence of Engineering, Technology and Science on Society and the Natural World

Book provided by Capstone Press