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LinkedInPosts Tagged: Nutrition Education; UC CalFresh
Planting the seeds for garden-based education
Each school day, teachers must carefully plan and account for their instructional minutes. For each grade level has specific time recommendations for math and English language arts, so teachers often feel they do not have the time to include extra activities in their already packed schedules. When UC CalFresh gave a brief survey to teachers a Santa Maria school last year, teachers identified the following barriers to using their school garden for instruction:
- Lack of instructional time or preparation time
- Lack of curriculum and learning activities
- Too many students to manage in the outdoor setting
These concerns reflected comments that UC CalFresh nutrition educators frequently heard from teachers who were invited to bring their students to the school garden.
Taking these concerns into consideration, UC CalFresh developed innovative strategies to meet the needs of school teachers, showing how instructional minutes in the garden don't have to be “extra” and can include hands-on learning for English language arts and math, with a focus on nutrition. The strategies include:
- Clearly aligning garden-based nutrition education with common core lessons
- Providing garden-based curriculum and materials for learning activities in the garden
- Hosting Garden Open House Days, during which teachers can bring their students to the garden when UC CalFresh Educators are present to increase educator-to-student ratios.
The first No-Prep Garden-Based Nutrition Education Kit was piloted in October and featured pumpkins. The No-Prep Kit became fondly known as the Pumpkin Kit. The Pumpkin Kit encouraged teachers to take the lesson out to the garden, increasing students' physical activity time while providing opportunities for students to practice common core skills. The kit focuses on nutrition and cooking while reinforcing math, science and language arts. The kit includes books, worksheets, an oven, and several different pumpkins for measuring, cooking, estimating, and tasting. This kit requires no teacher prep time, is adaptable to any primary grade level, and is an easy introduction to garden-based lesson delivery.
During a Garden Open House Day hosted by UC CalFresh in October, kindergarten students and their fifth-grade buddies came out to the garden. The fifth-grade buddies worked with the kindergarten students to use observation skills (five senses), learn adjectives, and draw the pumpkin life cycle. The older buddies gained teaching and language arts skills while working with their little buddies in the garden. Students got to dissect the pumpkins in teams and used the seeds for counting. Each kindergartener took 20 seeds home to practice counting with their parents, which also served as a budding connection for students' families and the school garden.
"If we had something like this every month, we would be able to go out into the garden more and maybe we could get more teachers to come. This is what we need, curriculum that can be used in the garden," said kindergarten teacher Mrs. Joaquin.
“The program has been awesome," said one fourth-grade teacher. "[UC CalFresh] incorporated math, science, social studies into lessons. Students were excited and engaged. Many tried new vegetables they'd never had before and liked them! Kids learned responsibility and pride in designing, choosing plants, maintaining and harvesting in school garden.”
For more on UC CalFresh of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties see the Facebook page at facebook.com/uccalfreshslosb
UC CalFresh nutrition education is offered in schools jointly by UC Agriculture and Natural Resources and USDA.
Fostering changes one #healthyselfie at a time
A group of participants in the UC CalFresh Nutrition Education program will graduate next week ready to use the knowledge and skills they have acquired to make healthy choices for themselves and their families. Let's find out what healthy changes they have made:
“I added whole grains.”
“Put more vegetables in daily diet.”
“Serving more fruits and veggies.”
“Eating more greens and less fatty foods.”
“Eating more colorful vegetables.”
“Don't leave meat out!”
“Eating more vegetables and fruits.”
“Being more physically active.”
The UC CalFresh Nutrition Education program is a no-cost, evidence-based course focusing on nutrition, physical activity, food safety and resource management offered to low-income youth and adults. Community partnerships are essential for successful, sustainable programming.
The Fresno-Madera County UC CalFresh Nutrition Education Program is currently hosting an Eat Smart, Being Active class series in partnership with a local job training agency. Participants attending Proteus' Jobs 2000 classes are offered nutrition education as part of their ongoing education, job training and job placement services. UC CalFresh maintains an ongoing partnership with Proteus Inc., enabling us to expand our reach and assist low-income families to make informed and educated decisions when it comes to their health.
The current class has covered topics including:
- Incorporating a variety of fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins into meals and snacks.
- The importance of physical activity, and the health benefits one derives from maintaining a healthy diet alongside an active lifestyle.
- Resource management, to encourage participants to stretch food dollars while making the healthiest food choices.
- The importance of dairy foods and calcium for bone health.
As a nutrition educator, I always encourage participants to make healthy lifestyle changes, regardless of how incrementally it's done. Whether it means walking around the block during lunch or breaks, or adding more fruits and vegetables to everyday meals, no change is too small. Health changes made gradually enable us to maintain them over time.
Below are a few tips I like to provide series participants:
- Start with a goal that is achievable and time bound.
- As you achieve your health goals, challenge yourself further. For example, you may be accustomed to drinking whole milk and have effectively transitioned to reduced-fat milk (2%). Don't stop there, challenge yourself and go for low-fat (1%) milk.
- Write down your health goal, this will keep you accountable.
- Your health goal should be fun and enjoyable, involve your family or friends to make it social. For example, create a neighborhood walking club and encourage others in your community to be more active.
- Celebrate your successes!
- For more tips, I encourage participants to visit choosemyplate.gov. There are always new resources available to make a healthy lifestyle easier.
Lifestyle changes happen gradually, and Jobs 2000 participants are leading the way toward building healthier families, while encouraging others to do so too. Together we can inspire others to make healthy changes!
I want to encourage you to take a #healthyselfie to inspire others within your community to make healthy lifestyle changes.
Use the hashtags #UCCE and #healthyselfie, and follow @UCCalFreshFC and @UCANR to stay connected with our social media platforms, for more healthy tips, and for updates about events and classes in the Central Valley. You can join and stay connected to the work being done in Fresno and Madera counties across many platforms including: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and our Blog.
Pictured above are (clockwise, from upper left) Brenda, Cheyenne and Mercedes who showcase their #healthyselfie with goals for food safety, eating more leafy greens and being more physically active.
Picture this: UCCE focuses on healthy meals for Healthy Weight Week (Jan. 18-24)
In 2011, the U.S. Department of Agriculture unveiled a new food graphic, MyPlate, to remind consumers to choose healthier foods. Work by Cooperative Extension in California that began years earlier influenced the adoption of MyPlate by USDA. Nutrition educators in California began using a plate graphic with USDA's My Pyramid several years ago in a research project with Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) and UC CalFresh Nutrition Education Program participants. While evaluating the use of their graphic, which was very similar to USDA's MyPlate, UC Cooperative Extension nutrition advisors found that a graphic depiction such as the one USDA is using for MyPlate is abstract for many families.
“We discovered that our clients need to see photos showing real food combinations in order to apply the MyPlate message to real food choices,” said Cathi Lamp, UC Cooperative Extension nutrition advisor. “They prefer to learn by viewing photographs with foods and meals they eat to see how it works and how they can implement the guide in their lives.”
They evaluated the behavior of consumers who were trained with the revised Plan, Shop, Save and Cook curriculum with photos of food and compared it with the results of the original version of the lessons.
“Everybody enjoys looking at pictures of foods,” said Lamp. “So what we have now in our nutrition classes are lots of photographs of healthy examples.”
To listen to an interview with Cathi Lamp about My Healthy Plate in Spanish, visit Enseñando a comer ‘con sabor latino' con MiPlato at http://ucanr.edu/sites/Spanish/Noticias/radio/?uid=5983&ds=199.
For more than 100 years, the University of California Cooperative Extension researchers and educators have been drawing on local expertise to conduct agricultural, environmental, economic, youth development and nutrition research that helps California thrive. UC Cooperative Extension is part of the University of California's systemwide Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Learn more at ucanr.edu.
At the end of the school year, we celebrate success
As the school year comes to a close, the schools we work with are humming with end of the year festivities. Students are looking forward to summer break, but always ask if we will be on campus teaching nutrition next school year. The answer is an enthusiastic yes!
As we say our temporary goodbyes for the summer, we've been reflecting on all of the wonderful experiences we've had. UC CalFresh staff really enjoy collaborating with teachers dedicated to helping children and families build healthier lifestyles. It's a joy to see children learn to make healthier choices over the school year.
Here are some of the highlights from our work in community nutrition education that we couldn't wait to share!
Teaching Yokomi elementary students how to build a healthy body
Trying new foods at Columbia elementary
Learning about edible plant parts at Sunshine Day
Teaching 3rd graders to choose "anytime" foods at Farm and Nutrition Day
The above images capture just a glimpse into the exciting world of nutrition education. This year we've celebrated alongside parents who have earned a certificate in our class series, helped establish nutrition corners to promote healthy eating, and so much more! We can't wait to see what next school year holds!
To learn more about the nutrition education happening in Fresno County, visit the UC CalFresh blog.
