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Nutrition 2: Good Food, Good Health
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Purpose
To explore ways in which food provides energy and materials for our bodies.
Context
In the elementary grades, particularly the lower-elementary level, children
know that there are different foods–some "good" and some "bad." They also
seem to understand that a person's height and size can depend on what
he/she eats. In this investigation, students will use online resources
to help them explore how food can affect their overall health.
As you go through this lesson, you also should be aware that younger
elementary students often believe that the contents of the body are
what they have seen being put into or coming out of it. They also know
that food is related to growing and being strong and healthy, but they
are not aware of the physiological mechanisms. You should make it clear
that food is a source of matter for growth, not a requirement for growth.
This lesson is the second of a Science NetLinks three part series.
It works in conjunction with Nutrition
1: Food and the Digestive System, a lesson that focuses on the necessity
of nutrients, and Nutrition 3: Got Broccoli?, the final lesson that
encapsulates what students have learned about nutrition.
This lesson addresses only the first part of the
benchmark. Additional activities that focus on how, as people grow
up, the amounts and kinds of food and exercise needed by the body may
change, will be necessary for students to gain a full understanding
of this benchmark.
Planning Ahead
Materials:
Motivation
Have students read 5 A Day Facts on the Dole 5 A Day site. The
study could be printed ahead of time and distributed to students.
Note: You should structure this activity in a way that matches
the reading levels of your students. Students could read the article
on their own, or you could read it aloud as a class.
Ask students the following questions based on this study:
- Instead of fruits and vegetables, what are some of the foods
that children snack on?
- What fruits are kids eating?
- What vegetables are kids eating?
- What percentage of a kid's diet should be fruits and vegetables?
What is the actual percentage?
- What are some of the troubling findings of this study?
Next, have students study the image of The Exploding Pyramid in the middle of the page. This image not only shows the amount of fruits and vegetables
that should be consumed, but the number of servings of dairy products,
meat/poultry/fish, and breads/grains.
Keeping in mind these figures, ask students the following
questions:
- How many servings of meat/poultry/fish should kids have in a
day? How many servings are kids actually eating?
- How many servings of dairy products should kids have in a day?
How many servings are kids actually eating?
- How many servings of breads/grains should kids have in a day?
How many servings are kids actually eating?
After discussing the study, talk about how kids as a whole could go about
eating the recommended number of servings from the five major food groups.
Ask students why it is important to eat the right foods. Have a discussion
with them about their various views.
If time allows, you may wish to extend this activity by having students
survey their classmates about typical snack choices. This survey can be
done within the class, grade, or school-wide.
Development
Have students to go to the Nutrition Café's Nutrition
Sleuth game. This game can provide students with a good introduction
to how vitamins and minerals are essential to keep everything working
well.
Since there are seven different cases students can attempt to solve,
you can break up students into teams and have each team tackle a case.
Have students write down what they learn about the nutrients in their
science journals as they solve the cases.
Once the teams have solved the cases, have them report to the class
what they learned. You might want to create a table for the whole class,
using a large sheet of paper. List each of the cases included in the
Nutrition Sleuth game and then write down the results of the students’
investigations by each case.
After the class has finished this exercise, ask students the
following questions:
- What foods are good sources of calcium? How does calcium help
keep everything working well?
- What foods are good sources of iron? How does iron help keep
everything working well?
- Why is water so important for our bodies?
- What foods are good sources of vitamin C? Why is it important
to make sure we include vitamin C in our diets?
- What food is an important source of vitamin A? How does vitamin
A help keep everything working well?
- What is an important nonfood source of vitamin D?
- Why is vitamin D important for helping to prevent osteoporosis?
- Where can you find folate? Why is folate important for helping
to keep everything working well?
After completing this exercise, discuss the students’ answers with them.
To build on the concepts that vitamins and minerals are essential to
keep everything in our bodies working well, provide students with the How'd You Do Your 5 Today? chart, from the Dole 5 A Day site. Ask students to
follow the directions on the page and select the fruits and vegetables
they ate the day before. Once students have selected the fruits and
vegetables, discuss these charts with your students and ask them these questions:
- Did you manage to eat five fruits and vegetables a day?
- If not, what can you do to reach the goal of eating five fruits
and vegetables a day?
- If you did manage to eat five fruits and vegetables a day, do you think that has a positive or negative impact on your health?
- Why do you think it is important to eat five fruits and vegetables a day?
Once you have discussed the charts with them, ask students to think about
the number of servings of each of the food groups they had the day before
(you can refer them back to the 5 A Day Facts). You might want to create a
chart and write down the number of servings per student for each of the
food groups. Then, have students determine the average number of servings
the class ate. Compare those numbers to the national averages for each
of the food groups. Be sure to exclude French fries and potato chips for
the vegetable group.
Discuss with students how they might increase the number of servings
of food from the five food groups they eat in a day and the importance
of eating a balanced diet in order to get the vitamins and nutrients
they need to keep their bodies working well.
Assessment
A good way to assess students’ understanding of this
material is to have them create a Food Guide Pyramid poster themselves
and use this poster to inform and encourage other students to eat the
recommended servings from the five food groups.
To have students create this pyramid, divide them into five different
teams, each one concentrating on a particular food group. But, instead
of just listing the five food groups and the number of servings that
should be eaten from each, students also should include the types of
food found in the food groups and the types of nutrients that can be
obtained by eating those foods. They should state why the nutrients
are important for helping to keep their bodies working well. Students
also could illustrate the pyramid with pictures of the body parts for
which these foods are particularly good.
To make the Food Guide Pyramid itself, students can use a standard
size poster board. The Food Guide Pyramid will have to be fairly large
so that it can include all the information. Each of the pieces of the
pyramid can be set up in the following way:
- Name of Food Group
- Recommended Number of Servings
- Types of Food Found in Food Group
- Nutrients
- Benefits to Body
If possible, the poster can then be displayed in the school cafeteria
to serve as a reminder to all the students in the school to eat the recommended
daily servings of the five food groups.
Extensions
Visit Nutrition 3: Got Broccoli?, the final lesson
in this Science NetLinks series. Here, students analyze food advertisements
and then create one of their own to demonstrate what they have learned
about nutrients and good food choices.
Have students play Grab
a Grape from the Nutrition Café. Here, students select from categories
such as Food & Sports, Bone Building, Weight Control, and Body Building
to learn more about the nutrients in foods and what they can do for the
body.
Created :10/20/2001
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