Interactive Projects

Overview
In this activity, students will visit an interactive Web site that computes an individual's daily caloric needs based on current weight, weight goals, and relative level of physical activity. Using these data, the site provides specific recommendations for meeting those caloric needs through healthful and exciting meal options. Several recipes are provided. Students who cook for themselves and/or their families can be encouraged to provide an in-class cooking demonstration of various recipes, furnishing classmates with samples.

Objectives

• To learn by entering data at a World Wide Web site about the relationship between weight, physical activity, and total calories needed.
• To recognize that careful meal planning is a key to improving one's overall level of nutrition without compromising the joy of eating.

Getting Started
Introduce the activity by telling or reminding students that the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a publication jointly created by two departments within the U.S. government, opens with the advice that "eating is one of life's greatest pleasures." Ask: Is it possible to eat healthfully and eat for pleasure at the same time? Allow time for discussion, including probable skepticism from some students. Observe that it may well be possible to have your cake, so to speak, and eat it too. Have a volunteer log on to the Web site while classmates look on. Note that each student should make a note for future reference about his or her daily caloric needs.

If your school has rules against preparing foods in the classrooms, you may alternatively ask volunteers to prepare the dishes off-premises and bring samples to class. Be sure to set aside time after the cooking demonstration and/or tasting to publicly thank the student chefs for their efforts. Conclude by returning to the question raised earlier about whether foods can be both good and good for you.

Classroom Follow-up
Have students use the experience to make adjustments to their regular eating habits for a period of several weeks, and to keep an ongoing log in their Health Journals. Allow students to compare their successes and failures and to share food discoveries they have made during this period.

If your school or class has its own Web site and there are students in the class with experience in writing HTML documents, consider following up the activity by having volunteers create a page featuring their own healthful recipes. Other members of the faculty and student body should be alerted to the presence of this new page and encouraged to visit it.