To help add a bit of excitement to physical Education Department classes in elementary schools across the country , the folks at Burton Snowboards have been work on a program to get snowboarding ( yes , snowboarding ) inclose into the curriculum by apply a unequalled indoor board .
The program ’s success swear on a piece of technology scream theHover Cover , which is fundamentally a felt encasement that enwrap around the base of kid - sized snowboards . It allows the board to slip effortlessly across gymnasium floor , giving scholar the chance to practice the fundamentals of the mutant without having to go outside in the snow .
A concept of Burton ’s vice president of global resorts , Jeff Boliba , he created the Hover Cover after his son sound off his schoolhouse would n’t permit him try snowboard in an after - school ski program . Boliba began approaching school administrators and Physical Education teachers to try an introduce a raw program . However , they all told him that getting tyke outdoors and onto the Charles Percy Snow deliver too many logistical barriers . Undeterred , Boliba next turn to ski haunt around his home of Burlington , Vermont . He managed to train a small - scale crash course for kids that gave them basic instruction in 30 - min progression place . He called it the Burton Riglet Program .
Students responded with such overpowering ebullience that he set forth on a missionary post to find a way to make it possible to play it indoors . While instal astroturf or contrived Snowflex would be too complicated and heavy for teachers to comport around , Boliba created the Hover Cover . Once he ’d developed a prototype , Boliba add a dual - clout handle to the front of the boards so students could pull each other around the gym to practice basic balance and maneuvering skills .
“ This made it so that the gymnasium teachers did n’t have to draw every single kid , and made it workable to be a part of physical education curriculum,”Boliba enjoin GrindTV .
He launched a fender program in Vermont , and before long after word start out spread like wildfire . Boliba wrote a manual for P.E. teachers to show them how to prevail the platform and recruited a twosome of pro snowboarder to participate in an instructional video about how to mix it into their curriculums .
The programme now exists in school in Vermont , New York , New Jersey and Colorado — and continue to grow every Clarence Shepard Day Jr. . Next , Boliba says he desire to take it outside the United States .
“ The big thing here is to break down barriers and make snowboard more accessible and affordable for kids to to get a gustatory sensation of , ” Boliba say . “ It ’s awful that we ’ve been able to do that so far . ”
