It is recommended that in the face of decreasing levels of physical activity in adolescents, schools would increase their emphasis on physical education as a vital curricular subject. However, more physical education programs are being eliminated in favor of increased seat time for other curricular subjects. Adolescence, in particular, is a period during which physical activity levels sharply decline. Because virtually all adolescents attend school, school physical education has an opportunity to make a significant contribution to their daily physical activity level. The focus of this study was to utilize step counts via pedometry to estimate the contribution of daily physical education to the total daily physical activity of middle school students. Participants were 160 students attending a middle school, 80 who were enrolled in daily physical education and 80 who were not. For four consecutive school days participants wore the Yamax Digi-Walker pedometers. Recordings were taken when students arrived at school, before and after physical education, and at the end of the school day. Participants kept daily hourly logs and completed a questionnaire that investigated their attitudes toward participation in physical activity. Differences in activity levels between boys and girls, and between physical education students and non-physical education students were compared. The contribution of daily physical education to overall physical activity was expressed as a ratio of the number of steps taken during physical education to the total number of steps taken during a 24-hour period. The results lend support for the important role that physical education has in contributing to the daily physical activity needs of middle school students.