AA Speakers

Today we had a man and a woman come in to talk about their alcohol history. Their goal of coming into our class was to help us realize the cause and effect of alcoholism. They told us what they went through and basically explained how they got clean. They went into a program called "Alcoholics Academy" which, according to them, helped a lot. They handed out a pamphlet with different meeting schedules on it so we can use them for a reference if needed. It's always inspiring to hear what other people have gone through and I think this is a really great idea for high school students. 

Iron Chef Labs

Strawberries:

Group 1:
- comparing organic strawberries versus conventional
- used enzyme science to demonstrate the decomposition of strawberries
hypothesis: they wanted to see whether the strawberries would dissolve in beakers with chemicals the same way they do in the human body
variables: uneven evaporation, not enough strawberries to record reliable data, some beakers were different sizes, and the amount of mold changed the measure of displacement as well
- as the strawberries dissolved they would become more dense
- pectanate enzyme seems to be the strongest dissolver for organic
- would want a higher temperature for this lab bc it would be more reasonable and real because it would be like the human body
relating to nutrition: it's like the chemical digestion in the body, the chemicals digest the food so this was what they were looking at *see hypothesis for this

Group 2:
hypothesis: If a lab technician swabs a organic and a conventional strawberry and transfers it into an agar plate and later an incubator then the organic strawberries’ agar plate will grow more botrytis cinerea than the agar plate with the swab from the conventional strawberry because the organic strawberries are not allowed to use pesticides to prevent mold.
- comparing conventional versus conventional
- wanted to see if conventional grew mold faster than organic
- made a special agar to grow mold and it's special bc it didn't degrade the mold amount
- used 12 petri dishes: 6 conventional & 6 organic
- variables: some people turning off the incubator, accidental contamination, timing (having this class every other day can affect the accuracy of the results)
- didn't find as much fungi as they wanted to
- saw about the same growth of bacteria on both strawberries
- started the experiment with day-old strawberries

Group 1 is on the left and group 2 is on the right. Here is a picture of group 2 presenting to the judges which are about 8 feet or so in front of them.

Pesticides:

Group 1:
- to see how pesticides affect plants and animal cells
- thought that the pesticides would affect the animal cells more because it would attack them
- used yeast and basil plants
- used 4 basil plants
- variables: ants in the beakers
- pesticides did affect both the yeast and the basil
- with pesticides, yeast died and basil did also
- without pesticides, they did fine
(hypothesis was correct)

Group 2:
- If organic and inorganic samples of: ground chuck, and apples are exposed to the same pesticides, then the organic food’s cellular structure will be more damaged by the pesticides than the non organic foods, because non-organic food has been altered to resist pesticides.
- organic and conventional apples and ground chuck
- measured by how many colonies were found on the agar
- swabbed the pesticides and put them on the dishes
- wanted to see if mold would grow on the agar in the dishes
variables: the incubator being turned off, the ants trying to go into their plates, their timing (could only look every other day), didn't have as many plates as they would've liked to have
- more growth on the organic items
- apples had more mold

Here's a picture of groups 1 and 2. In this picture, group 1 is presenting to the judges and they're explaining their data table.

Corn

Group 1:
- If a plastic water bottle is melted down and BPA is collected and placed on kernels of corn, then the corn kernel that received this BPA will experience more cellular damage in comparison to unaffected corn because BPA is a toxic chemical and will kill aspects of the cell.
- testing for bpa, it was in all of the corn
- extracted bpa from plastic water bottles
- they used acetone to melt the water bottle
- bpa has a lower melting point than plastic so at the end of the experiment, bpa was the only part left over
- refrigerated for 4 days
- bpa is NOT something we want in our food
- breast and prostate cancer can come from bpa
- bpa can also put a damper on the body's hormones

Group 2:
- If 50g of frozen, canned, and a conventional ear of corn are stored within an incubator at 33° C, then the conventional ear of corn will generate the most bacteria within 6 observational days because no methods have been applied to prevent the growth of bacteria and promote the preservation of the corn.
- thought the ear of corn would grow the most bacteria in the petri dish compared to frozen corn and canned corn because it's the most natural and nothing has been done to it
materials: agar tablets, beakers, different varieties of corn, dishes, heat protected gloves
- first, they weighed the corn, and separated them into 3 petri dishes and contaminated the petri dishes so bacteria would grow
- after they put the corn into the incubator, they examined the progress over the course of about 2 weeks to see which corn promoted the most bacterial growth
variables: incubator being turned off, not completely accurate colony counting
- ear of corn grew the most bacteria

Drinks

Group 1:
- soda, and apparently healthy smoothie
- used teeth to see how these different drinks would affect the teeth
- hypothesized that the soda would cause the most plaque to build up and would be much worse for the teeth
- got actual human teeth from an oral surgeon
- experimented with tea coffee, and listerine to watch the buildup as well
- the artificial sugars ruined the teeth and at the very end, the teeth were completely black
- needed 1-5 test subjects
- agar plates went into incubator at 33 degrees Celsius
- 1/5 Americans drink soda every day
-

Group 2:
- If yeast is given different liquids with varying amounts of natural and artificial sugars in bottles with balloons on top, then the bottle with the most natural sugar will inflate the balloon the most because the yeast will thrive with the natural sugars causing the yeast to release more carbon dioxide.
- tested what different drinks would do to the yeast and documented the results (coke versus green goodness; smoothie)
- the beaker with more natural sugars inflated the balloon more
- honey and the sugar overflowed in less than an hour in the second trial
- after a little while, the sugar was the most inflated
- 3 hours later: honey caught up
- overall, the cane sugar inflated the balloon the most because the yeast eats the glucose excessively
variable: ran out of honey and yeast

Unit Project

Link to our video: NEW School Nutrition Video


Our lesson plan:

Lesson Plan:

Name: “ What is ‘healthy’?”  Makenzie hernandez, Paige Dieckmann, Audrey DeVenuto, Alyssiana Hugel

Date presenting:11/4/16

Grade Level: 6th & 7th

Length: approx 45 minutes

Leave from high school at 10:15

Leave from middle school at 1:30

Topic: Nutrition and the importance of good eating habits

I. Objective:

To teach students about the importance of healthy food and snacks and to try to steer them away from their usual sugary and non-nutritional foods

Purpose:

To teach students about the importance of healthy food and snacks and to try to steer them away from their usual sugary and non-nutritional foods

Materials:

• Dixie cups

• Blender
• Large bowl
• One bag of crushed Ice
• 1 large Banana
• A pack of strawberries
• 1 Avocado
• Dino kale
• A pack of blueberries
• 32 oz of all natural  greek yogurt
• A mixing tool
• Ice chest
• Z bar
• Quest bar
• Empty starbucks cup
• 12 oz coca cola
• Milk chocolate kisses
• A bag of mini carrots
• Two small bowls
• Whole grain gluten free bread
• Unsalted organic almond butter

List teacher references

Mr. Shebest

Mr. Sullivan

III. Procedure

1. Lay out a bowl of milk chocolate kisses and another next to it with carrots and see which one kids go to ( take about 5 minutes)
2. Show the flipped classroom video to explain why the kids went to the sugary option and then explain why the carrots are the healthier option and why children and even adults should start choosing the healthier options more (takes about 15 minutes)
3. Show the kids the needed amount of sugar and then show them the amount they consumed per day in 2008 and explain to them how it’s 2016 now, 8 years later ( takes about 5 minutes)
4. Show the physical representation of the starbucks cup, soda, luna bar and Z bar ( takes about 5 minutes)
5. Explain the benefits of this quick and easy snack vs what they would normally eat ( takes about three minutes)
6. Now prepare a smoothie, with ½ a cup of strawberries, ¼ cup of blueberries, 4 leaves of dino kale, ½ avocado, 1 large banana, ¼ cup of greek yogurt, and ¼- ½ of soy milk depending on the thickness (takes about 10 minutes), 1 handful of ice.
7. Give a dixie cup sample of the smoothie to each kid (takes about 3 minutes)

     10.)Explain the benefit of this healthy and yummy snack ( takes about three minute)

     11.)Final step is to hand out the recipes

A. Anticipatory Set:

You need to water plants for them to live. If you water a plant with sewage water, it will die. Just like if you eat junk food now until adulthood, your organs will fail.

B. Body of the Lesson/Input:

The body of the lesson is our flipped classroom video and a lab.

C. Closure:

We will have a paper printed out for them full of questions to answer about the lesson to see what they retained from it and a short evaluation on how they think we taught the lesson this way we could get some feedback on our project. We will save a slot of time at the end for any questions or clarifications they need.

D. Follow-up activity: Independent Practice, Enrichment or Reinforcement:

We will be handing out a piece of paper with pretty broad questions on it such as, “What did you learn today?” and “Will you be changing your eating habits and/or pay more attention to them after this lesson?”


To wrap up the nutrition unit, we were assigned a unit project and my group went over to the Middle School to teach 6th and 7th graders about nutrition. We discussed the importance of eating habits as an adolescent and gave them tasty snacks to try after our presentation and video.

First, we asked the kids to come up and choose either a carrot or a chocolate; whatever they felt like eating in the moment. Once we tallied up the results, we asked the kids why they think the majority of kids chose chocolate over carrots. Their responses were all similar, "Because chocolate tastes better and is sweet!" We took these observations and presented them with a video explaining the importance of good eating habits.

After the video finished, we explained the main take-away's and asked the kids questions like, "Before this video what did you consider healthy?"

Overall, the majority of the kids' perceptions of what to eat had been altered in a positive manner.

Then, we made the kids a healthy smoothie and explained the process to them so they can make it at home.

We asked what they thought of the smoothie and the majority of the kids really enjoyed it. As you can see in the picture above, this girl loved it!

Overall, this project was an amazing experience and I loved working with these kids and teaching them about nutrition.

Unit 1 - Nutrition Reflection Assessment

The time I have spent inside of this core and the amount of knowledge I’ve already taken away from it really shows that this system works for me. I come into this classroom ready to learn and tackle new lessons and assignments along with our projects we’ve been working on these past few weeks. The fact that we get so much freedom inside of this core motivates me to do my work and I’ve really adjusted to getting my work done quickly, yet still doing my best, and setting my priorities straight in school. Before I entered this program, that was often something I would continuously struggle with.

Nutrition has always been a topic that I’ve been interested it and once we started learning about how different foods are made and how they can potentially affect our bodies, I was hooked and wanted to learn more. We’ve had guest speakers come in and talk about how different foods affect our bodies in different ways which has without a doubt changed my eating habits and what I take from the grocery store now. While reading Omnivore’s Dilemma, I have learned an immense amount of information and can not only use it for my own life, but also for my family’s and their eating habits. Something that has stuck with me is that organic really hasn’t been defined and/or been confirmed to be what society views it as. Before reading this book, I thought that organic products were all natural and never had any type of added chemicals or hormones. Afterwards, I learned that the USDA has set certain standards that imply organic companies must have a certain amount of something in order for it to be considered “organic.” Even if a food has a small percentage of trans fat or something along those lines, they don’t have to include that on their label and can still use the organic name on the product if they remain below the limit. The foods that you really should be eating, according to Pollan and many other nutritionists and scientists, are the ones that are grown naturally and inside of gardens where there aren’t any pesticides or added hormones. Below is a picture that was taken at the farmer’s market that is an actual representation of how the majority, if not all, of farmers feel about pesticides and GMO’s.

Natural produce isn’t that hard to find, either. It may take some research and looking into, but if you really want to eat healthy and live a long life, you’ll care enough to look. Here is a picture of some natural produce that farmers from the market we went to grew themselves:

Another process that we do in here is record our progress and document what we’ve done in our digital notebook. Inside of our notebook online, we can upload pictures of labs and projects to show our understanding of topics we’ve been introduced to. Inside of my vocabulary tab, I’ve written about what I’ve learned in our labs. One lab that has stuck with me is the Digestive System lab. In this, we learned the functions of the mouth all the way down to the rectum. Throughout this process, the body extracts nutrients from the foods we consume and gives it to our cells and then the waste is sent towards the rectum and becomes poop.

Here is a picture of what we used to represent the large intestine. This picture shows us that when foods go through the large intestine, the nutrients are put out into the body while the waste remains inside to be sent out. Throughout this process, enzymes are used to help make this process possible and make it go at an efficient pace. Enzymes are what help two substrates combine quickly and the product is what comes out of it and what is now formed.

Here is a picture of what we used to represent the mouth. The cups are the molars which help crush the food and the scissors represent the incisors that grind up the food which makes it easier for it to go down to the esophagus. The enzyme that helps break down the food is amylase.

Soil is also a huge factor that affects the nutritional value of our food. Where crops are planted and the time of year they are put into soil really determines if it will be a good choice or not. Foods, like fruits, have certain times of the year in which they can prosper and grow.

Here are different soils we used to measure the pH levels. The soils that are moist, yet not runny, are the soils that are ideal for farming and growing crops. However, according to many researchers, the soil is where the healthy produce starts. Like I’ve previously mentioned, if there are no added hormones, GMO’s, and/or preservatives, the produce is good for the body. If there are, the food that you consume which contain these can affect the body in a negative manner and be crucial for your future health. If you continue to eat unhealthy foods and develop bad eating habits, they will carry into adulthood and can really cause defects on how you live and function in life. Something that can affect the body is sugar intake. The amount of sugar an average person should be consuming on the daily is six to nine teaspoons which is equivalent to about 36 grams. However, in 2008, there were studies that confirmed people ate approximately 76.7 grams of sugar per day. This can be connected to different types of cancers and diseases such as diabetes because the body cannot handle an excess amount of sugar at once.

Here is a representation of the different amount of sugars. On the very left, is one gram. In the middle, there is about 36 grams of sugar and on the very right, there is 76.7 grams.

This unit about nutrition has changed my lifestyle and without a doubt, how I view my diet completely. I really enjoyed learning about how different foods affect my body in different ways and how healthy eating habits can contribute to a long life. Before this core, I thought I knew all I needed to know to be healthy. However, that was not the case at all. I’ve learned how the digestive system works along with how we breathe and how plants supply oxygen for us to survive. “Omnivore’s Dilemma” is such an eye-opening book that has shown me what to really look for when I’m shopping for food and looking for meals to eat inside of my home. I’m going to not only take this newfound knowledge for myself, but also my family and friends to keep them on track and healthy.