Teacher Recommended Resources - Food Chemistry

These extensions are brought to you by other teachers who have used this unit. They have not been evaluated by The Einstein Project. REV. 4/24/08

Had the students bring in the nutritional label from the back of their favorite snack foods.  Then they check on the nutrients.
- made graphs of grams of fat in each to compare

Did a lesson on George Washington Carver

Parent involvement – cooking class throughout the year

Glucose shape poems for any food containing glucose

Glucose/diabetes activity

Bring in food samples from home/cafeteria to do final test
 - identify macro/micro nutrients

Video:  Magic School Bus – “Inside Ralphie”
 “The Great Food Fight”
 “Nutrition Expedition”
 “Nutrition” – Bill Nye
 “Pyramid Exploration” – the Dairy Council
 “Super Size Me” the movie about McDonalds
 “How chocolate Bars are Made” – an Eye Wonder video
 
Food pyramid
 - good eating habits

Taught with a unit on digestion, excretory system, and good eating habits

Speakers:  Nutritionist, dietician, County Home Economist, a diabetic,
Food scientist

Field trips: to school kitchen to see foods prepared
  Great Harvest Bread co.
  Copp’s Foods
  Apple Valley Orchard – in the fall
 (Trips are a good tie-in to food in the community)

Book:  Edible Pyramid
 Why the Brown Bean was Blue

Test various milks

Scatter plot with snacks from different classes

Shape poem with nutrients

Science performance task – see attached sheet

Had students invent their own soda

After each lab, had the students write a summary statement, this helped tie all their results together.

Calculated what % of banana, orange, etc. is edible

Did a survey/graph of the relationship between fat content and snacks selected as favorites

Calculated the cost per serving for carbohydrates, proteins, etc.

Put together a school family cookbook & sold it for a fundraiser.

Created healthy eating ads

Used Pyramid Explorations from the National Dairy Council

Introduce the digestive process

Had the students compile information about their nutrition facts, rank them from highest to lowest in the four nutrition categories and develop hypotheses from that information.

Charted what we ate for a week and analyzed the chart to see if we were getting all the servings we required.

This unit is really easy to relate the importance of science in criminal investigation. With all the Crime Scene Investigator TV shows, it is easy to tie chemical testing activities to make believe fun CSI scenarios.

Studied foods from around the world & made an international lunch

Created public service announcements

Websites:  http://smallstep.gov/kids/flash/index.html

Created a four way Venn diagram for the food tests