Visit an elementary school in Kentucky’s Jefferson County Public Schools and you may find students doing partner yoga poses. The activity, part of a massive study of a “whole-child” education program called the Compassionate Schools Project, has several purposes.

When students do these partner poses, they practice mindfulness — paying attention to their own bodies — and they learn how to cooperate and problem-solve with a peer. It’s a physical activity that asks students to practice balance and agility while also engaging them mentally and socially.

This multipurpose approach is at the heart of the Compassionate Schools Project. It seeks to integrate the development of a student’s mind and body, combining fitness with health education, social and emotional learning and support for academic achievement.

Tish Jennings, an associate professor at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, is one of the researchers who developed the curriculum and is studying its impact in Louisville-area schools. Now in the fourth year of a six-year project, the Compassionate Schools Project aims to reach more than 10,000 students across 25 elementary schools with the curriculum, and compare them with students who are not exposed to it.

Read the full article about the benefits of yoga in schools by Tara Garcia Mathewson at The Hechinger Report.