"New PE" has become a popular term in our profession. While reference is sometimes made to the need to change the way we teach physical education, more often, attention is focused on the need for physical educators to introduce students to a variety of new, non-traditional activities. Among the plethora of new activities bring promoted is rock climbing. The indoor version of this activity now being introduced in many public schools is traverse wall climbing. Due to the fact that indoor traverse walls can be built relatively inexpensively and because students enjoy them, many schools now include these walls in their gymnasiums. The Traverse Wall Assessment Package was created by Everlast Climbing Industries Inc., a company that builds climbing walls in schools. This package was specifically created to fill a void in available traverse climbing teaching information.

• Goals and Goal Setting
• Student journals
• Checklists and Forms
• End-Of-Units Ideas
• Sample Climbing Wall Activities
• Resources

Each of the first four chapters provides examples of the topic discussed, and is accompanied by blank assessment forms. For example, the first chapter provides sample long and short term goals. These goals are then followed with blank goal setting, and goal assessment forms, that could easily be used with little adaptation in the classroom. The goal examples and assessments were developed for each of the learning domains (psychomotor, cognitive and social/emotional). Assessments in each of the four chapters are designed to provide a variety of assessment approaches to reflect student progress. Sample forms include data collection experiences where students write in sentences, fill in blanks, complete journals, draw pictures, fill out checklists, and even label body parts. Additional assessments encourage teachers to track student progress through checklists, rubrics and even interview questions.

An additional feature in this comprehensive collection of materials is a series of activities that could be completed in the class. The climbing activities are organized progressively, from simple to more complex. These activities provide to teachers ideas of what their students could do on the walls, and how to organize those activities.

As Physical Education programs continue to expand offerings beyond the traditional activities which teachers have been best prepared to teach, similar publications need to be developed. This type of comprehensive collection of materials, specifically focused on nontraditional activities, provides the potential of increasing confidence in teachers leading to an increased willingness, and readiness, to expand nontraditional activities. Of course, all materials still need to be examined and adapted based on student's needs and the specific program's goal.

While this collection of materials is an excellent assessment resource, it does not include basic climbing techniques which would increase student success. The climbing activities are simply a list of activities without an obvious objective related to basic climbing technique. Identifying one or two refinements directly related to what the students should focus on learning during these activities would strengthen the resource. Hopefully future editions will include specific technique instruction to the activities, along with related assessments. However, even without the specific climbing techniques, I would recommend this to teachers who are, or will, be using traverse walls in their curriculum.

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