Learning about how, why, and what to eat before graduation can set students up for a lifetime of healthy eating habits.
Students have more options than ever in what they consume to fuel their bodies. GMOs, vegetarian, organic… so many choices! The following thought-provoking, engaging activities, lesson plans, and variety of resources help every high school student learn about nutrition, a healthy diet, their own eating habits, and why some methods of eating may be better than others, both for themselves and for the environment.
1. Should High Schoolers Eat Breakfast?
As an introductory class, take the time to read a recent article with your students from the LA Times. Discuss the main points of the article, and whether or not your students agree with it. Take a poll of your class and find out how many of your students actually eat breakfast.
Learn More: Los Angeles Times High School Insider
2. Breakfast Brawl
This activity from the 4H has students create a dream breakfast with a certain budget. After that, students will discuss the breakfast items and rank them from most nutritious to least. This eye-opening lesson on food costing encourages a discussion of healthy food choices students make every morning.
Learn More: University of Massachusetts Amherst
3. MyPlate Quiz
This quiz will teach your students (and yourself) about your views on nutrition using interactive resources. It is created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, using governmental resources on what we should be eating. Use these multi-media resources to learn about why you eat the way you do, and where to go from here.
Learn More: My Plate US Department of Agriculture
4. QR Stations Digital Activity
Learn more about MyPlate and why it is a useful guideline for nutrition with these class activities. This activity includes QR stations (students love using their phones!), activity sheets, notes activity, video, information sheets, and more! This resource is all-in-one if you only have time for one of these great resources!
Learn More: Family Consumer Sciences
5. Nutrition Labels Deep Dive
Have students bring in their favorite foods and packaged food items- cookies, drinks, breakfast cereal, etc. Have them individually scrutinize the nutrition information, gain a better food label understanding, and discuss it as a class. Some students may be surprised by what their favorite snacks are hiding!
Learn More: Center For The Advancement Of Foodservice Education
6. Making Healthy Choices
Free printable booklet for students to learn about sodium, fiber, and sugar. This resource would make a great plan for a substitute, or for independent learning. This booklet succinctly highlights the pros and cons of each and how to eat healthfully.
Learn More: Deceptively Educational
7. Evaluating My Snacks
Compare different snack foods from the school cafeteria, food pictures, or items that students bring in. This worksheet is a great follow-up to the previous booklet where students learned about sodium, fiber, and sugar. Students can fill out their own information and compare it to a classmate.
Learn More: Deceptiveley Educational
8. Six Essential Nutrients
Research the six essential nutrients we get from food. Have students create a poster to increase awareness about one of the six nutrients and post it for others to see. Create a nutrition campaign and promote healthy eating in your school!
Learn More: Mary Brown
9. Get Fooducated!
This technology-based lesson uses iPads or phones and the Fooducate app. Scan snacks from the grocery store or cafeteria and find out what is really in your food. Weigh the pros and cons to decide if it is a healthy food or not.
Learn More: Hous View
10. Big Macromolecules
Use this chemistry lesson to determine what macromolecules can be found in a not-so-healthy meal, a Big Mac! Students will look for evidence of starch, glucose, proteins, and lipids. This activity is sure to be eye-popping – it begins with putting a Big Mac in a blender! These educational materials will help students decide on a more balanced diet.
Learn More: iTeachly
11. Hot Topics
Split your class into groups and have each group become the experts on a controversial hot topic about nutrition. This entire class discussion will help your students become the experts on healthy habits, organic vs. non-organic, superfoods, and plant-based diets.
Learn More: AFPA
12. From Farm to Fork
Here are 17 different lessons about how food travels from the factory to the consumer while preventing food poisoning. At the end of all of the links to teaching guides on the topics of the food system, farms, factories, food chains, and consumers, students are encouraged to create an action project utilizing what they have learned.
Learn More: Food Span
13. Wellness Week
Host a wellness week focused on healthier habits and nutrition at your school. Have students set up challenges such as who can try the newest fruits and vegetables, healthful foods, or who can eat the most locally, and give out healthy nutrition-themed prizes! Create a committee to come up with ideas!
Learn More: Real Mom Nutrition
14. Focus on 13 Essential Vitamins
Learn more about what vitamins are essential and where to find them. This will help students develop an idea of the foods they should be eating to make sure they are getting enough of them in their diet.
Learn More: Scholastic
15. Map Your Tongue!
Use lemon juice, grapefruit juice, salt, and sugar to determine the layout of taste buds on your tongue with these hands-on activities. The tongue is the key to tasting foods and encouraging people to want to eat more of that food. Learning why you prefer certain flavors deepens your understanding of why you eat certain foods.
Learn More: Education
16. Examining Dietary Supplements
Learn about dietary supplements and their place in nutrition. Students will focus on caffeine, supplements, and energy products as students become more and more interested in consuming them. Determine if consuming these products is safe or risky.
Learn More: US Food and Drug Administration
17. Exploring Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering in the Food Supply
This unit plan delves into the origin of agriculture and the genetic modification of a variety of foods. Included are activities such as extracting DNA from strawberries, managing pests, and changing the nutrients in food. Students will learn about past practices and how food evolved over time to what it is now.
Learn More: US Food and Drug Administration
18. Food Safety Guide
This unit plan teaches students about bacteria, and how it is managed in the farm, factory, store, and home. Included are activities about irradiation, heating, and using high pressure to make food safer to consume. This is a great way to increase knowledge of food and breaks down kid-friendly food safety.
Learn More: US Food and Drug Administration
19. You Are What You Drink
Identify different methods of making water safe to drink, and determine how individual communities treat their drinking water. Learn about how drinking water was purified over time, and how engineering has made drinking water safer than ever.
Learn More: Teach Engineering
20. Drink More Water!
Read about why it is important to drink water during the school day and create a poster campaign to increase awareness in your school. Microlearning modules provide background information and steps students can take to drink more during the school day.
Learn More: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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