Lesson Plans and Teaching Activities

From the myriad of web sites about health, fitness and nutrition, we have gathered up-to-date and trustworthy materials suitable for middle school classes. Have your students take a look at food serving sizes and the nutritional benefits we obtain from including fruits in our diets via lesson plans from the New York Times library. We've also located a classroom resource from PBS that puts the student in the coach's shoes and a site from Discovery.com that looks in-depth at the topics of hormones, sweat, and nutrition.

Rounding out this section are interactive approaches to raising kids' awareness of health issues and ways to make their bodies and minds stronger. Click on the Pizza Explorer where students can learn about food processing, food chemistry and the nutritional composition of this favorite food. Use the cal-o-meter and the sat-fat-o-meter on SmartMouth.org or read the latest excerpt from the Plastic Food Diaries to discover other facts about the foods we eat.

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Teacher's Bulletin: Bring Food Science into Your Middle & High School Classrooms http://www.foodsafety.gov/~fsg/teach.html

This resource is from the Science and Our Food Supply web site, a program developed by the Food and Drug Administration and the National Science Teachers Association. It can be incorporated into biology, life sciences, and other science classes. Teacher guides for middle level and high school classrooms each contain 16 hands-on experiments and activities presented in five modules. The bulletin contains an extensive collection of annotated links to online resources dealing with food safety, interviews with professionals in different food science careers, an A to Z list of terms, and safety tips for preparing different types of food. A link is also provided to the FDA/NSTA Professional Development Program in Food Science. MSP full record

The New York Times Daily Lesson Plan: Sizing up Servings http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/20030722tuesday.html

This lesson plan helps students understand the definition of suggested serving sizes and examine their daily food intake in terms of these sizes. An article on the topic and a set of classroom activities form the basis of the one-hour lesson. The site also offers homework ideas, links to web resources, vocabulary words, extension activities, and more. MSP full record

The New York Times Daily Lesson Plan: Fruitful Questions http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/20050208tuesday.html

This one-hour lesson is inspired by a New York Times Q & A science article on the nutritional qualities of dried and fresh fruits. In addition to discussing the nutritional values of fruit, students are asked to develop their own food science-related questions and answers, using the article as a model. The web site includes academic content standards and concise sections that address objectives, evaluation, extension, and interdisciplinary activities. MSP full record

Quests for Better Health http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/activities/questsforbetterhealth/

In these web quests for grades 6-12, students use the Internet and other resources to research and learn more about three health topics: hormones, sweat, and nutrition. The teacher can assign a specific quest or have the students choose the one that interests them most. Each quest provides links to web sites on each topic, followed by questions for students to investigate.

You Be the Coach http://www.pbs.org/inthemix/educators/lessons/sports1/index.html

This lesson plan from In the Mix, the award-winning PBS TV series for teens, will get your students interested and motivated with its hot-topic approach. In a two-day lesson for grades 7-12, students form small groups based upon their mutual interest in a sport. Students investigate the coaching of the sport by reading about the sport in books or magazines, viewing televised or video sports programs, searching the Internet for web sites on sports and youth, interviewing local high school, college, or recreation program coaches, or viewing the sport in person. Students outline or diagram how to teach the specific skills for their sport, and then demonstrate the skills to the class, using classmates as active participants. Students will discuss reasons why sports, athletics or physical activities should be an important part of teens' lives. MSP full record

Plastic Fork Diaries http://www.plasticforkdiaries.org/

This site uses a diary/journal format set at a fictional school to introduce issues surrounding food, proper nutrition, eating disorders, and other related topics. The site invites students to follow six middle school students as they experience firsthand the relationship between food and their changing bodies, cultural differences, the vanishing family meal, and nutrition and athletic performance. The site provides additional information on topics covered in the diaries, including helpful links, background information, healthy recipes, and a message board for teens to sound off on related topics that concern them. A teacher's guide has been created as a companion to the site. MSP full record

Pizza Explorer http://www.accessexcellence.org/pizza/

If you are having a difficult time engaging students in food science topics, take a look at Purdue University's interactive, multimedia program to demonstrate how science applies to everyday foods. Students learn about food processing, food chemistry, and nutritional composition by focusing on their favorite food: pizza! They can choose between two interfaces (left brain or right brain) to suit their particular learning style. Other features include a pop-up glossary, quizzes, games, and information about each topping, aptly called "Hot Topics." MSP full record

BAM! Body and Mind: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention http://www.bam.gov

This site focuses on topics that kids, ages nine to 13, said were important to them, such as stress and physical fitness, and uses kid-friendly lingo, games, quizzes, and other interactive features. Topics covered include nutrition and fitness, disease, mental health, peer pressure, and relationships. Students and teachers can benefit from interactive features such as activity cards and online quizzes that utilize colorful graphics. MSP full record

Smart-Mouth.org http://www.cspinet.org/smartmouth/

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocate for food safety and nutrition, sponsors this site. Users will find loads of fun and informative features, such as Choose Ur Chews, where users select fast food and snack items from different categories to see how they measure up on the cal-o-meter and the sat-fat-o-meter. Pop-up Snacktoids give quick info bites that might surprise you. Articles and recipes, video clips, and interactive games round out the site. MSP full record

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Copyright September 2006 — The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0424671. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.