Remaining Miles to the Moon:
Washtenaw Community College is traveling TO THE MOON ... and we need everyone's help to get there!
Students, faculty and staff are encouraged to log their physical activity (daily or weekly) to add to the college's collective total. The goal for the Fall '23 semester is to travel 238,855 miles — which is the average distance between Earth and the moon!
While you can enter miles walked in the activity log, this isn't only a walking program! Dr. Marvin Boluyt, who developed the Exercise Science program at WCC, has done the math and converted dozens of physical activities to equal one mile of walking. For example, four miles of casual bike riding equals one mile of walking. The same can be said for eight minutes of fast jump roping, 10 minutes of cross country skiing, 27 minutes of rock climbing, 41 minutes of treading water, or 313 minutes of stretching. Any and all physical activity can be tracked and added to the mission of making it TO THE MOON!
Get started now by clicking the "Access Activity Log" button. Additional details and instructions are available below.
NOTE: The default value for walking is "Miles," not "Steps."
Leaderboard
| # | Name | Distance (in miles) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||
| 2 | ||
| 3 | ||
| 4 | ||
| 5 | ||
| 6 | ||
| 7 | ||
| 8 | ||
| 9 | ||
| 10 |
WCC: TO THE MOON is a health program developed in association with the college's commitment to the national Exercise is Medicine On Campus initiative. It is intended to incentivize every WCC student, faculty, and staff member to up their game by increasing either the quantity or quality of their current exercise habits.
Participants are encouraged to report their physical activity and compete for the chance to win prizes. One set of prizes is reserved for top performers, so let the competition begin! A second tier of prizes is reserved for a random drawing in which every participant, regardless of the number of miles or minutes of exercise contributed, will be eligible. The contributions of all participants will be totaled and our progress toward the moon will be reported. The more individuals that participate in this campus-wide, semester-long event, the more successful it will be.
If 1,000 people participate, they need to average 234 miles over the course of the semester to reach the moon. If all 12,000+ WCC students, faculty and staff contribute, we'll get there in no time!
TO THE MOON Instructions:
- Upon accessing the Activity Log, you will be asked to sign in with your WCC netID and password.
- At the top of the Activity Log, you have two options as it pertains to your name appearing on the TO THE MOON leaderboard. Change the "Leaderboard Status" to "Off" if you do not want your name to appear at all. You can also change your "Display Name" to something other than the default, which is your first and last name as it appears in WCC's database. (Note: Alternate names will be reviewed for appropriateness.)
- The leaderboard will appear on this page after three weeks of compiling physical activity data.
- To record your physical activity, first click the appropriate week. The default entry is number of miles walked each day. You can add different categories by clicking the "Add Activity" button and choosing from an alphabetical list that ranges from "Aerobics (high impact)" to "Zumba." You can search for activities by typing in the "Filter Activities" field. Enter your value (steps, miles, minutes, etc.) and the program will convert your effort into the equivalent number of miles walked.
- If you do not see your physical activity — or one closely associated — on the list, contact Dr. Marvin Boluyt for advice on how to convert your activity to miles.
When we get to the moon, we can all slam dunk a basketball in the 1/6th gravitational field ... or play an exaggerated game of leapfrog!
Once we are successful in reaching the moon in less than one semester, we may have a shot at walking to Mars by 2037. At that point, the planet will be about as close as it ever gets to Earth, and we would only have to walk 34.8 million miles to get there!