Starr’s Mill High students recently shared their expertise on healthy eating with their friends at Peeples Elementary. From fun food group games to hands-on activities, they showed future foodies how to build a balanced plate and make smart choices—one healthy bite at a time!
The gathering was part of a two-year project for students in Adriah Williams’s Nutrition & Food Science pathway.
In the first course, Food, Nutrition, and Wellness, students work with groups to create a presentation to teach elementary-aged students about healthy eating and living choices. The project challenges students to take their knowledge and simplify it, making it understandable and accessible for a child to learn. They present the project, with their classmates acting as elementary schoolers and offering feedback for improvement.
In the second course, Food for Life, they revisit the presentations from the previous year. They are challenged to pull out the best parts, using their critical thinking skills to justify their choices to use and dispose of certain parts along the way. They present again to an audience of classmates and a panel of guest teachers, once again receiving feedback and using it to improve their presentations.
Once all of the groups have perfected their presentations, they go on a field trip down Panther Path to Peeples Elementary. Each group is assigned to a different grade level based on how their activities encompass the best possible learning outcomes for all students. This year they visited 4th and 5th grade classrooms. The high schoolers receive feedback from the elementary teachers, then complete a self-evaluation.
Williams looks forward to seeing her class show what they’ve learned with their young friends.
“This is an incredible learning opportunity for my students, and it encourages the elementary students to take the course when they reach high school, contributing to the growth of the pathway.”
