This web quest was designed with later elementary in mind, as they should be encouraged to begin thinking and making choices on their own, especially about their health. The web quest should take 3 to 4 weeks, meeting once a week for 30 minutes each time. It is covered in early Fall as an introduction to navigating the web and using it as a resource, not just a toy. The students should have a good grasp on web navigation as well experience with Thinking Maps or Concept Maps in order to organize their thoughts. Basic understanding of a word processor is also necessary to create the menus.
At Jennings Elementary the web quest is carried out when the classes comes to the Technology Lab for computer time, but the task could easily be adapted for a classroom with larger groups or a longer time frame for completion.
This activity could easily be used at the secondary level as well for health classes. The resources would still be age appropriate, but the task might be tweaked to make it a bit more compelling to older students. A more "in depth" or complicated task, such as creating a weekly menu centered around fat intake, proteins, calories, and general nutrition.
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Standards
Both critical thinking and creative production skills are addressed in the task for this web quest. Some compromise might be involved if done in groups, but the focus is the creation of use-able knowledge and understanding of healthy eating.
Michigan Standards:
Physical Education: Physical Fitness Standard 9
Describe the effects of....nutrition on body composition.
English Language: Meaning & Communication Standard 3
Employ multiple strategies to construct meaning while reading, listening to, viewing, or creating texts.
English Language: Skills & Processes Standard 7
Develop and use a variety of strategies for planning, drafting, revising, and editing different forms of texts for specific purposes.
Technology: Using Information Technologies Standard 2
Retrieve and communicate information using a technological system.
Evaluate information received through technologies.
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Process
This is a copy of the student's exact process with image removed for easier reading. Additional notes provided for the educator are in blue and parenthesis.
STEP 1
What should you eat? Lots of scientists did lots of experimenting and found out that you need different kinds of food to stay healthy. They put them into a Food Guide Pyramid.
Click on the link below and use a brace map to put different foods into the right food groups. (Brace maps are simple thinking maps that break objects, processes, or ideas into smaller parts of a whole. In this case it would be pyramid; 6 food groups; examples of food in each group. Examples of brace maps can be found here.)
Food Guide Pyramid
STEP 2
How much should you eat? Eating different foods is half of eating healthy. The other half is eating the right amount of food. The link below will help you with how much someone your age is supposed to eat. They call how much you need a serving. On the brace map, write down how many servings of each food group you should eat.
How much should you eat?
STEP 3
Make a Shake! Now that you know what you should eat and how much, make a milk shake as a reward! Use the ingredients they give you at the link below to make a healthy fruit shake. Use your brace map to find out how much fruit you should add. You can print out your shake recipe when you're done.
Make A Shake
STEP 4
UH-OH!
Something is missing! You know how much to eat, and what to eat, but there's one more thing. Food is energy! Some foods give you more energy than other foods, and scientists have a way of measuring how much energy is in food. They call them calories.
A calorie is a way of measuring how much energy is in food. Think of calories like gas in a car. The gas in your mom or dad's car is energy for the car. You need a lot of gas to make the car go, but you can't put in too much gas, or it spills out of the car.
Your body can use a lot of calories, but if you put too many calories in your body, it can't spill. In fact, your body will get bigger, and bigger, and bigger, until you stop putting in calories. If you eat too many calories you might end up getting so big you have trouble running around, breathing, or squeezing into your desk.
The link below will help you figure out how many calories you need each day to keep you going and not get too big. Remember, as your body grows it will need more calories to keep it going. Write down how many calories you need each day to keep you going. (The calorie calculator is quite easy to use, it just requires the individual's height, weight, age, sex, and activity level. I use a simple bathroom scale for weight and a yard or meter stick for height. Activity level is more than likely very active, but remind students that if they only play outside of school less than 4 days a week they might want to choose moderately active.)
Calorie Calculator
STEP 5
Order Your Food You now know what the food groups are. You also know how many servings of each food to eat. You know how many calories you need to have in one day. Now it's time to create your menu for the day. If you can make three meals using as many servings as you are supposed to eat your parents will let you pick your own food from now on. Remember, don't go over the number of calories you should have in one day!
Decide which fast food restaurant you want to eat at. Click on the picture to take you to the nutrition page for each place. You will have to find the food you want to eat and then find out how any calories are in it. Add up all of the calories in your food to make sure you don't go over your limit. Also make sure to get as many servings as you need in each food group. Or you can get a nutrition guide from your teacher for the restaurant you want. (Having printed nutrition kinds will help immensely as the online guides can be confusing at times. Make sure to help them find the calories column at the top ahead of time on one example and then find a food item, say a hamburger, and then determine how many calories are in each one. Also remind them that to meet serving requirements to count burgers as buns, meat, and vegetables if they have tomato or lettuce.)
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Resources
This web quests requires that the students have already read about the explorers in their social studies texts. One educator can carry out the lesson for an average sized class of 25 students. The help of an aide is recommended for student questions or needs. Beyond that very little is required in terms of computer resources:
- Internet Access
- Ruler and scale for measuring students
- Any word processing software
- Adobe Acrobat Reader (free download)
- Nutrition guides from fast food restaurants
- One computer for each student OR shared computers
Nutrition Exploration
Site dedicated to helping children understand nutrition. Includes activities, food pyramid guide, and a "kid's panel" about eating healthy while young.
Calorie Calculator
Simple calories per day calculator on the Walk About network. Requires height, weight, age, sex, and activity level.
Fast Food Nutrition Guides
http://www.arbys.com/nutrition/Arbys_US_Nutrition.pdf
http://www.burgerking.com/Food/Nutrition/downloads/nutritionals.pdf
http://www.yum.com/nutrition/documents/kfc_nutrition.pdf
http://www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.nutrition.categories.nutrition.index.html
http://www.yum.com/nutrition/documents/tb_nutrition.pdf
http://www.wendys.com/food/US_Nutrition_2003.pdf
http://subway.com/subwayroot/MenuNutrition/Nutrition/pdf/NutritionValues.pdf
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Evaluation
Your parents aren't here to give you a grade, but your teacher is! Before you show your menu to your parents it might be a good idea to let your teacher look at it. Your teacher can give you a grade for class, and maybe give you some tips on improving your menu to eat even healthier.
Your teacher will probably use this for grading. 4 points is the best you can do in each category, 1 point means you have a lot of work to do.
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All food groups are labeled.
All food groups have the right amount of servings in them. |
Most food groups are labeled.
Most food groups have the correct number of servings. |
Few food groups are labeled.
Few food groups have the right number of servings. |
No food groups are labeled, or mislabeled. |
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You used the correct number of servings of fruit. The shake recipe is printed out. |
You didn't use the right number of fruit servings. Shake recipe might be printed out. |
Your used the wrong number of fruit servings. Your recipe is not printed out. |
No shake was made, and no recipe was printed. |
| Menu |
Menu has three meals on it.
You didn't go over your calories for the day.
You got as many servings as you needed. |
Menu has three meals on it.
You went over your calories for the day.
You got as many servings as you could. |
Menu has less than three meals on it.
You went over calories for the day.
You didn't get all the servings you could. |
Menu has less than three meals on it.
You went over your calories for the day.
Didn't try to get the right amount of servings. |
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Conclusion
A
society can be defined as "a group of humans
broadly distinguished from other groups by mutual
interests, participation in characteristic relationships,
shared institutions, and a common culture."
If we are to acknowledge this definition of society
as an acceptable means to structure the classroom,
then it is essential to establish a community of
understanding and positive relationships. What more
meaningful "shared institution" or "common
culture" can we produce than a classroom community
that accepts its responsibilities, recognizes an
individual's significance to a group, and the inclusion
of all members? A classroom should be an environment
in which the students, and teacher alike, do not
worry about what to do the next time a behavior
problem exists. Every classroom participant should
recognize the importance of their actions, and how
each person can adversely affect themselves and
those around them. How is this achieved? Class discussions
of responsibility, exploration of differences, and
efforts to reconcile disputes through non-combative
means, verbal agreements, and discussion.
The
focus of classroom management should be on positive
results, repercussions, and responsibilities and
not on negative punishments or extrinsic rewards.
By eliciting children's prior knowledge and connecting
it to classroom lessons and materials it is possible
for children to take ownership of their education
and push aside unwanted behaviors produced by disengaged
or disinterested individuals. Exploring what makes
us as individuals feel happy, hurt, sad, lonely,
or hopeful and how that in turn will make a community
happier, lonelier, or courageous should be the focus
of discipline. Creating empathetic individuals and
sharing "mutual interests" as well as
mutual misgivings will help create a community in
which individuals understand how they affect one
another, and how feelings generated by their actions
will in turn affect actions towards themselves.
