Nutrition and Wellness

Stromboli Lab

As we begin the downhill slope to the end of the year, I like to work through the section of the MyPlate Diagram and have students prepare dishes for each group. For the Grains group, we made Stromboli. Students first did a small Webquest on basic grain information, then watched a demonstration on how to make a Stromboli (with fresh dough of course), and then made their dough. During the demonstration, students had to take notes about how to prepare the recipe, because all directions were left off of their recipe. It was helpful in keeping students engaged and listening because they couldn’t be successful in lab without the directions!

Today, students prepared their Stromboli and then created advertisements about one type of grain to encourage others to eat more a that grain in a healthy way. There wasn’t a lot of leftovers, so I think lab was a success!

Here are links to all the assignments my students completed in the lab

Grain Advertisement Assignment

Grains Online Assignment

Stromboli Demo Lab.docx

Exercise Tasting in Nutrition and Wellness

As part of our overall wellness unit, today we did an “Exercise Tasting” activity to give students a chance to try out a variety of different exercises. I did include Meditation as one of the exercises, because exercising and calming the mind is an important part of overall wellness.

I am blessed to have access to Beachbody On Demand, so I used the availability of different exercise programs through Beachbody to make today work. They had 7 stations, (Yoga, Weights, Kickboxing, Pilates, Cardio, Meditation, Walking). Students complete between 5 and 7 minutes at each station, and answered questions to evaluate each exercise after spending time completing the activity. It was a great way to get students up and moving and giving them a chance to try out different exercise programs. Exercise isn’t a one size fits all, and if students can find activities they enjoy now, they will be able to create healthy habits that will last into their futures. I had fun, and I hope they did too!

Here is the assignment sheet they completed during class. Exercise Tasting

Personal Nutrition Analysis

As we moved into Personal Nutrition in my Nutrition and Wellness class, I wanted to find a way to personalize this unit to make it real for my students.  To start, I gave each student a small notebook (fits in a pocket), and we talked about how many calories they needed a day for survival, weight loss, or weight gain. Then we divided the days out and students began simply tracking what food they were eating everyday, how much, and their water intake. After two days, we analyzed their calorie intake from both days to see where their current eating plan fits into a healthy lifestyle based on calorie intake.

They have tracked their diet for two more days and when we come back from Spring Break, they will analyze how those two days fit into the My Plate Guidelines and if they are eating the right foods for their dietary needs. Through all of this, we have had great discussions on healthy eating and  making small lifestyle changes. These activities have been a great way to get students interested in seeing how nutrition plays a critical role in their overall health.

Here are the two assignments students completed or will complete to analyze their diets.

Daily Calorie Intake

Food Groups Analysis

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead

As part of my nutrition and wellness class, we are learning about and discussing fad diets. A few months ago, I had a former student give a presentation on juicing. She had done a 10 day juice cleanse for a project and needed to present her information to another group. It was a great opportunity for her to speak to our class, and it was great for my class too. During her presentation, she mentioned the documentary, “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead”. It sounded quite interesting, so I purchased the DVD, watched it, and tried to decide how to incorporate it into my classroom.

We are on a block schedule, so Tuesday we watched the documentary. It is a little over 90 minutes long. I picked out two recipes from the recipe book my student had given us. We choose the “Mean Green” that is used in the movie, and a Pear Pie Delight. The students loved it! They didn’t all like the green juice, but everyone liked the Pear Pie Delight. We also shared with a few teachers and administrators our juice. After juicing, my students completed a Reflective Essay about the movie that I found on Google and adjusted it to fit my class.

Here are the juice recipes and the Reflective Essay assignment (found from a Google Search of the movie) I used for class.

Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead Writing Assignment

Joe’s Mean Green

4 green apples

2 cucumbers

16 Kale Leaves

8 Celery Sticks

1 lemon

2 in. piece of ginger

Pear Pie Delight

1 sweet potato

2 pears

1 red apple

1 1/3 cups blueberries