Food Dilemmas are great to use as stand alone assignments or to assign as a culminating project in any given lesson or unit. More importantly, since many of us are on hiatus from our normal teaching routine, food dilemmas are an ideal solution when having to prepare e-learning or flex lessons, especially during this corona virus pandemic!
After students learn about the dietary villains, we compare a variety of fast food potato options looking at calories, fat and sodium levels. We compare different fast food options calculating calorie, fat and sodium differences and then apply it to an alternative fast food potato recipe prepared in the lab. Students then choose a fast food menu item, researching to find a healthier homemade version that saves them calories, fat and sodium in this fast food project makeover.
The dietary guidelines recommend that we limit these three bad boys: fat, sugar and salt (oh my!) in our diet to reduce our risk of serious health effects. Sometimes this is easier said than done with teens! In order to make this more interesting and palatable for my students, I’ve turned it into a mini comic book project. That is, of course, after they’ve initially learned a little about these dietary villains!
While you hope nothing ever happens, it’s important to child-proof a house for potential injuries just in case. It’s always better to be safe than sorry! The safety hazards room by room walk about activity is an engaging way to brainstorm and get students up, out of their seats, critically thinking, communicating and collaborating with their peers.
Students need to have an idea of what makes a relationship healthy or unhealthy. In order to accomplish this, students spend time brainstorming on their own before joining forces as a class to complete the “RelationSHIP Graphic Organizer.” This is a very engaging class sharing activity before asking students to apply it as they analyze relationships to determine their healthfulness.
Several months back, I received an email about updated resources from The Dibble Institute. This update included an article about a university study, titled “What Youth Seek in Partners,” that sparked this life long partner shopping spree activity. I thought it would be interesting to recreate the study at the high school level and compare the results to the actual survey results. Initially my students thought this would be an easy activity, but on the contrary required much thought on their part. What was rather unique about the outcome of my survey, were the similarities of answers. My results, completed with two different classes, almost mimicked those of the university rankings. Read on to see other activities associated with this lesson/activities.
