Are You Nutritionally Correct

03/05/2002
Activity Overview: 

The Family and Consumer Science teacher and the Media Specialist at Centerville High School use a lesson that allows students to track their activities and diets on the Palm Pilot, hot sync that information to the DINE Healthy Software, analyze their personal nutrition habits, and then finally plan and prepare healthy snacks in the cooking lab. The teachers use the BIG 6 research model to provide a logical sequence to the students’ learning.

PURPOSE:
The purpose of this collaborative lesson is to introduce emerging technology into a classroom setting by combining the use of a Palm Pilot and the instruction of nutrition and food preparation designed around the research methods of the BIG 6.

OBJECTIVES: 

  1. Introduce the BIG 6. 
  2. Introduce the Palm Pilot. 
  3. Introduce the nutrition education and healthy cooking habits.

This lesson is based on National and the State of Iowa Standards and Benchmarks.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION: 
The Family and Consumer Science teacher and the Media Specialist at Centerville High School have developed a lesson that allows students to track their activities and diets on the Palm Pilot, hotsync that information to the Dine Healthy Software, analyze their personal nutrition habits, and then finally plan and prepare healthy snacks in the cooking lab. The teachers have used the BIG 6 research model to provide a logical sequence to the students’ learning.

ACTIVITIES:
(Note: This is a unit plan that may cover several days to several weeks. Not all of the following activities/standards will appear in the video clips used.) 

Procedures: Curriculum Standards:

http://www.intime.uni.edu/model/content/cont.html
National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) Performance Indicators:

http://cnets.iste.org/profiles.htm

The Media Specialist will Introduce the Big 6.  Information Literacy Standard: 1, 2, 3, 4 Grades 9-12: 8
The students will determine their life expectancy. Family and Consumer Sciences 9.6 Grades 9-12: 7, 8
The FCS teacher will introduce the Dine Healthy software. Family and Consumer Sciences 9.3 Grades 9-12: 5, 8, 9
The Media Specialist will instruct the students how to use the hotsync option on the Palm Pilot.   Grades 9-12: 5, 8, 9 
The students will input their dietary and activity records and print out their personal profiles. Family and Consumer Sciences: 9.6 Grades 9-12: 8, 9
The students will analyze their personal profiles. Family and Consumer Sciences: 9.6 Grades 9-12: 8, 9
The students will complete work plans in preparation of their nutritious snack lab. Family and Consumer Sciences: 8.2, 8.4, 9.3, 13.5 Grades 9-12: 8, 9, 10

TOOLS & RESOURCES: 
Web sites: (all cited on February, 2002)
Calculators:
Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)
http://www.room42.com/nutrition/basal.shtml

Body Fat
http://www.atozfitness.com/AtoZ_Body_Fat_Percent.htm

PalmPilot: 
http://www.techtutorials.com/Handheld_Devices/Palm_Pilot/

Big Six Problem Solving Strategy:
http://www.big6.com/showcategory.php?cid=6

Nutritious Snacks:
http://www.uen.org/utahlink/lp_res/nutri003.html
http://allrecipes.com/directory/default.asp

Software:
DINE Healthy: 1994-97 DINE Systems, Amherst, NY 14228-2103, dine@AOL.com

PalmPilot: Palm, Inc., Santa Clara, CA 95052, www.palm.com and www.palm.net

Easy Chef’s One Million of the World’s Best Recipes: American Cooking Resources, 1999 ACR International LLC, Provo UT 84604, acr-naca@itsnet.com

Periodical:
Nutrition Action Health letter published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Washington, DC

ASSESSMENT:
Students will complete a Dietary Analysis Packet that will demonstrate their understanding of how nutrients affect their health. The students will complete an evaluation rubric rating the information and knowledge they have gained from this project.

CREDITS:
Debbie Robinson, Family and Consumer Science Teacher, Centerville High School, robinsond@aea15.k12.ia.us

Kathy Uhlenhake, Media Specialist, Centerville High School,
uhlenhakek@aea15.k12.ia.us

TIMELINE & COURSE OUTLINE: 
This unit is a regular lesson in the curriculum. There is no reenacting. Some of the information presented in the videotaping will have already been presented to the students and the videotaping sessions will just reminders of previous knowledge.

INSIGHTS:
I have taught the nutrition portion of this unit before and the most exciting part for the students is when they find out what nutrients they are actually getting and not getting from their diets; and what is happening to their body because of their diet. 

TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES:
We chose the Palm Pilot because we believe the current Palm Pilots and other PDA’s are the most state of the art method for keeping one’s life organized. Frankly, trackers, planners and other hand written scheduling systems seem old fashioned compared to this type of technological equipment.

The Family and Consumer Science Department purchased a classroom set of Palm Pilots. The FCS teacher and the Media Specialist selected the Palm Pilot after considering other types of PDA’s. It might have been slightly more expensive but it seemed the best for our needs. We have access to three computer labs in our school. Two labs allow students to work individually at computers. The third lab is in the Library/Media Center where the Media Specialist and Media staff can help students while they are working on the computers. Eleven computers are available in this lab, so students can work in pairs or take turns between using computers individually and using non-computer resources available in the library.

SCHOOL BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
The population of our town is almost 6000. Most of the parents are employed in factories and service industry within our county. The school district enrollment is 1,650. Less than 1 percent of the students have limited English fluency. 95 percent of the students come from European descent. 2 percent of the students are African American, 1 percent are Hispanic, less than one percent are Asian, and less than one percent are Native American.

STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS:
The class featured in the video is a combination of two Food Preparation and Nutrition classes. At the beginning of the semester students were told about the video opportunity and in order to qualify sixteen students had to meet a set of standards. These standards are:

  1. Fewest absences 
  2. Fewest tardies 
  3. Fewest late assignments 
  4. Fewest disciplinary steps

The students that qualified had their names put into a hat and 16 were drawn out of the hat to participate in this opportunity. The sixteen have been dubbed “The Sweet Sixteen”. These sixteen students were also able to use a Palm Pilot during the unit. Ninety percent of the students have been highly motivated to be able to participate in this lesson, five out of forty students have zero absence, zero tardies, zero late assignments and zero disciplinary infractions. Eight of the students have one absence. This is a huge attendance improvement for my classes. Six of the students participating receive special services or are in special education, two are foreign exchange students, the rest range from below average to above average in class rankings. The students are extremely tolerant of one another and work as a family unit.

TEACHING STRATEGY:
The teaching strategies in this lesson include

  1. small work group
  2. demonstration
  3. guided computer work
  4. independent computer work

The Special Education students have to team up with regular education students and work as a team. Foods and Nutrition classes have an unusually high percentage of special needs students. Individual Responsibility and Civil Involvement with Others have been met by this pairing.

Content Management: Self evident just by the number of technologies we have incorporated into the unit, which includes PC’s, PDAs, and kitchen equipment.

Covenant Management: This method of classroom management is modeled when students are in their cooking families planning the nutritious snack lab.

The NBPTS emphasizes collaboration with professionals both in education and the business world. Our unit exemplifies pedagogical collaboration between the Media Specialist and the FCS teacher. Technology literacy and healthy lifestyle promotion have been the driving force behind the unit.

TECHNOLOGY AS FACILITATOR OF QUALITY EDUCATION MODEL COMPONENTS HIGHLIGHTED IN THIS VIDEO http://www.intime.uni.edu/model/modelimage.html
(Note: This is a unit plan that may cover several days to several weeks. Not all of the elements from the Technology as Facilitator of Quality Education Model that are described below will appear in the video clips used.)

The area of Vocational Education promotes optimal nutrition and wellness across one’s life span. This is the core of theRU Nutritionally Correct lesson. Information Processing is demonstrated in this lesson through the introduction and eventual skill in the use of a handheld personal digital assistant, such as the Palm Pilot. We envision the PDA as becoming a necessary part of organizing and processing information in each student’s world. Indeed, it becomes a part of the life-long learners’ world also. The students have the Direct Experience of itemizing and recording their daily food intake and physical activities. Then they analyze the results. They have the opportunity to optimize their results. This lesson presents a real situation with real consequences.

EVOLUTION OF THE ACTIVITY:
The first time I taught this unit I used one Apple computer and a dot matrix printer. The software was extremely elementary and only addressed three nutrients. I then purchased the DINE System software and the nutrient identification became more detailed and student learning became more aggressive. Students tracked their diet and activity on preprinted forms; now they are tracking this information on Palm Pilots by entering this information into an extremely advanced software program called DINE Healthy which is loaded onto 16 computers in a computer lab. I am collaborating with the Media Specialist twice a week to fine tune our technology curriculum and combine it into nutrition education.

(Learning activity format adapted from National Educational Technology Standards for Students Connecting Curriculum & Technology http://cnets.iste.org/students)