Lindsey's Final Reflection

Childhood obesity and nutrition is a growing issue in schools today. As future teachers, we need to make sure that students AND parents are well educated on the importance of healthy eating and excercising. Students need to be help accountable for their food choices and they should understand the differences between foods and why foods are healthy and unhealthy.

For my service learbing project I taught my classroom of first graders about what it means to eat healthy. I read them "Inside The Human Body." This is "Magic School Bus" book and they absolutely love them. The books discussed digestions and the heart as well as other parts of the body that need food to make energy. I also obtained a food pyramid from the Horace Mann school nurse. This paper also had eating and excercising tips for students as well as parents. I made copies for each student to look at and to take home after we finished our lesson. We discussed each group within the food pyramid and which foods go in which category. After discussing the food pyramid and why we need all types of healthy foods, we discussed how imporant exercising is. I asked each student to share a type of excercise that they enjoy doing. I recieved answers from playing basketball to walking. Asking this questions really prompted students to think about their daily lives and what they consider to be excercise. I gave each student a piece of "food paper." I instructed them to write about their favorite type of food, why it is their favorite, and what part of the food pyramid it belongs in. This was another great way for students to make personal connections to the material I was teaching. We all shared our writing at the class rug when we were finished. The students really enjoyed this activity.It felt great to complete this service learning project. I think my students really took something away from it and that made all of my work worth it.

I would even like to have my students do service learning themselves in a classroom.I think that service learning is most definitely a useful teaching strategy because it gets the students involved. I think it is important for students to do things other than writing letters and simply researching a topic or current event. When they take action and complete a service learning project they are going even deeper and really obtaining a personal connection to the issue. It allows them to become passionate and involved in something that they normally would oversee. By completing a service learning project, they would feel as if their efforts and hard work were being put to good use. Simply writing a book report or making a poster feels so unimportant to students. I would like to complete service learning in my classroom from the very beginning of my teaching career AND I would encourage my students to do the same as well. I hope that my service learning in my own classroom someday would allow students to take something  that means something to them and go out and complete their own service learning to keep the ball rolling!

The students really enjoyed this activity.It felt great to complete this service learning project. I think my students really took something away from it and that made all of my work worth it. This is what changed my attitude about the service learning project as a whole. I now feel as though it has a purpose to serve my students. I would suggest to future curriculum block students that they should pick a date to complete their service learning project immediately. With all of the other work going on in the life of a block student, it is easy to forget a project such as the service learning. As hesitant as I was about completing this service learning project, I really enjoyed it in the end. It was great to see how much my students enjoyed learning about the food pyramid. I was surprised to see how many of them didn't even know what a food pyramid was. But now, they do!

Jessica's Reflection

Obesity is an enormous problem in our society and it is only going to get worse.  I believe that to truly make a change and stop the swelling waist lines we must start by educating the children.  If we can encourage them to create healthy eating and exercising habits at a young age they will continue with them for the rest of their lives, as well as influencing their own children to be healthy.  I originally picked this topic because I thought that nutrition was the only factor influencing obesity.  Although I still think that it is a major factor, I also believe that a lack of physical activity is leading to the growing epidemic.

In my field placement at River Valley Charter School the children have to bring lunch from home everyday.  From what I have observed they all bring healthy lunches with fruits and vegetables.  Some do eat junk food snacks but for the most part they all eat very healthy.  If this is the case at home, which I'm assuming it is since their parents pack their lunches, why are some children still overweight?  In my opinion it is a lack of exercise and physical activity.  If these children just went outside to play I feel like it would make a huge difference.

For my service learning project I worked with the children in my class.  In Newburyport there is the clipper city rail trail, which is an amazing walking, jogging, or biking path that runs through Newburyport and ends at the Merrimack River.  My cooperating teacher wanted to set up a partnership with the rail trail in which the students could contribute to it's upkeep every year.  I helped contact the people in charge of the trail and set up a day on which the children could clean some of the litter off the trail.  I then walked with the class to the trail and helped them in the clean up day.  It was amazing.  They were all so excited to make the path beautiful for the people who wanted to use it and loved being able to contribute to it's upkeep.  Many said that they used the trail with their families and enjoyed walking along it.

After completing this service learning it was awesome to see how much the children loved keeping the trail beautiful.  I found it fascinating that so many of them walked along it with their families and used to to exercise and get outdoors.  Helping the class create a beautiful place in the community for people to exercise was an amazing experience.

Cassandra's Reflection

Obesity is a major epidemic in our country. I believe that much of it has to do with the convenience of "junk foods" and lack of education on healthy eating habits. Never the less, it is an issue. Before this blog I had no idea of how severe this issue really was. For my service learning project I wanted to do something to impact the future generation. So for my project I decided to do a lesson on nutrition with my group of first graders. I read them the story, "How Did That Get In My Lunchbox?" and taught them about important nutrients they need to ensure that they stay healthy. After reading the book and teaching them about nutrients, the children participated in a variety of activites. I found an online interactive game for them to play which focused on "nutrient superheroes." The game presented several scenarios, and asked the children to choose an appropriate nutrient super hero to help in the situation. For example, one scenario was about a child who broke the bones in his arm. It then asked the children to choose which nutrient super hero would help to build stronger bones. The answer was Captain Calcium. Following this online activity students were given a worksheet with a plate on it in which they would create a healthy meal with five items. Students seemed to love the activity and the teacher even wrote down the website I used for future refrence.

Doing this service learning project felt awesome! I truly felt that I was making some type of differnce. I think that the first step to change is to educate people, of all ages, on the issue. I think that helping the children to understand that foods play an important job in keeping us healthy might  influence their eating habits. I do feel as though service learning projects are useful teaching strategies because it allows the students to build a passion for the topic. By sharing their thoughts and knowledge with others it helps to build the sense of compassion and interest that the student running the service lerning project feels. I do think that I would continue to do this service learning project with my future students because it is such an important issue. Many children do not understand what constitiutes a healthy meal and it is something that all individuals should know no matter how small they are!

I think that to make this assignment better you should aware students straight from the begining of the semester to plan a day to get their service learning done. Once they know their topic, they should plan their service learning. I think that the planning of service learning would be a great initial assignment. I feel as though many of us felt rushed to complete our service learning which detracts away from its value.