Diet and Exercise

Project Director 's names:  Indok Park, Melissa Mendoza, Dustin Templin

Project Title:  Diet and exercise

Total budget: $2,596.41

            In today 's society there has been a drastic and noticeable increase on the emphasis on physical appearance and weight of Americans.  These additional pressures may cause people to seek unhealthy and potentially harmful measures to fit a certain desired physique.  On the other hand, there is also an overwhelmingly high number of overweight individuals in America.  The goal of our project is to educate students on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle which will be beneficial to their overall health and wellbeing.

            We hope that through completion of this project our students will create a greater sense of ownership with their diet and exercise habits.  Students will first learn about the digestive system, its components and their functions, and overall structure.  This is where students will learn how the food they eat is broken down and where nutrients are absorbed.  During the second half of the project, students will learn about the respiratory system and muscles.  Here students will use online simulations to help them see exactly how these systems work.  They will also build a model lung system to understand the process of respiration.  Another important component of the project is students will keep a diet and exercise journal to calculate their caloric intake and calories burned while exercising based on activity and duration.  They will use their journals and findings to compare their diets to a diet displayed in the movie Supersize Me.

            Students will walk away from the project with essential knowledge needed to assist them in establishing and hopefully maintaining a healthier lifestyle.

Grant:  Description

            This project is intended to give students a complete understanding of how they can work to keep their bodies healthy through diet and exercise.  By educating students on the digestive system, respiratory system, and the muscles they will understand how important it is to take care of their body, and maintain a healthy lifestyle.  We hope that students will walk away from this project with the desire to maintain a healthy lifestyle through diet and exercise.

            Throughout the unit, we will be covering several topics like diet, exercise, respiratory system, muscles, the digestive tract, nutrition facts/labels, and the composition of food.  In the first week, students will learn how to read and interpret nutrition labels of food.  They will also learn about the digestive tract, and the importance of fat, carbohydrate, and protein in food.  In learning about nutrition facts, students will learn how to read and interpret the nutrition labels on food.  They will begin to have an idea of the composition of certain foods.  For example, by examining and comparing food labels, students will see the make-up of foods they eat giving them the understanding of what nutrients and elements are found in that food.  In the same week, they will be able to distinguish the difference between fats, carbohydrates, and protein and understand the important roles they serve in our bodies.  Knowing what foods are composed of may encourage students to regulate what they eat; for instance, after the first week students gain knowledge of food composition so they understand that carbohydrates are found in foods like breads and pastas, where as protein can be found in meat.  Students ' knowledge of nutrition will help them realize that their health is important, and they should practice a healthy lifestyle.  Later in the first week, the digestive tract will be introduced and students will identify the parts involved in the digestive system, recognize the function of each part, and indicate where substances like fat, carbohydrates, and protein are initially broken down.  Technology in the classroom will be integrated here by having students visit a digestive simulation on the internet.  The site provides a visual run-through of the digestive system, as well as letting students interact by placing the correct digestive organs in their corresponding location of the body.

            During the second week students will keep a food and exercise journal.  They will record everything they eat, as well as any physical activity they participate in.  Students will use the program Diet Analysis + version 6.1 to input the food they consumed over 5 days.  The program has a database of over 5,000 foods and their nutritional values, it will then provide a detailed analysis of their diet including, caloric and fat intake, graphs of how they compare to recommended daily values, and what they can do to improve their diet.  The exercise journal and an online calorie calculator will be used to calculate the amount of calories burnt during these physical activities.  They will then use a formula to determine the percent of calories burnt.

            During the last weeks of the project, students will be focusing on the respiratory system and the muscles in the body.  Students will actually build a model of the lung system using balloons and describe the process of respiration and understand why our breathing increases during exercise.  They will also use internet simulations to gain knowledge of the process of muscle contraction and filament sliding.  Here is where they being to relate what they have learned, they will have a full understanding of how diet and exercise are interrelated, and also how the type of exercise affects the amount of calories being worked off.

            Problems the project may encounter are sensitivity towards the project, and varying diets.  Some students may eat foods that can 't be found on the diet analysis program.  Even though the program is equipped with a library of over 5,000 foods I do not think it includes foreign foods which will be an issue in a diverse classroom.  In this case, students will be instructed to find the closest related food provided by the program.  Secondly, students could feel sensitive about discussing their personal diets and exercise habits with the class.  In this case, instructors could address the seriousness of the issue and that students should be considerate of each other.

            This project will educate students on how the foods we eat, and the activities we engage in, directly relate to our health.  Students will then be motivated to practice and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Grant: Rationale

            Emphasis on weight has become a growing trend in America.  Statistics have shown that the number of children and adults who were overweight had jumped significantly in the past several years.  Due to this alarming statistic, more and more people are becoming conscious of their diet and exercise plan.  However, is it enough to decrease the number of overweight people, especially children? Texas alone has four of the top ten fattest cities (http://chicago.about.com/cs/miscellaneous/a/fattest_cities.htm). "Thirty-five % of Texas school-age children are considered overweight or obese." (Strategic Plan for the Prevention of Obesity in Texas, pg 13). 

            This project is aimed to create a sense of ownership within each student about their diet and exercise.  In the first half of the project, students will explore the digestive system 's structure and function.  With this understanding, students will also discover how the foods each chooses to eat effects his or her body.  During this project, students will keep a record of their diet in a journal and compare it with the diet from the movie: Supersize Me.  In the second half of the project, students will explore the effects of different exercise plans.  Maintaining an equal balance between diet and exercise is vital to an overall healthy fitness.  Students will be able to compute calorie intake and calorie burned by gathering information from the internet and using calculator to compute their net result.  At the end, both diet and exercise are merged together.  To evaluate the class 's progress and understanding, each student will give one presentation to the class. 

            This project 's impact has a long lasting effect. Each young student will learn how and why one can become overweight, but how one can also combat it as well. A website will be built for students to communicate and discuss health issues.  Students from the class will post different cases of health concerns and reply with suggested solutions.  This allows students from other schools to learn about health from each other.  Discussion boards would allow them to communicate with each other or other students can post different health issues in order to receive suggested solutions.  This website over the years can cumulate different situations that other class generations can learn from.   Therefore, students will be equipped with the knowledge to maintain a healthy weight throughout their lives.  If so, then hopefully the statistics in Texas would decrease. 

Grant: Potential Impact

            Assuming thirty students per class and five classes a year, this project will directly reach a hundred fifty students.  Students who may struggle with diet and exercise may talk with a counselor for emotional support.  The project also includes the formation of a website in which students from other schools can discuss or post cases of diet and exercise related problems.  Near the end of the project, students learning from the project can reply with suggested answers.  This requires the cooperation of the principal, any information technology staff members, and science teacher.  Together they will cooperate and collaborate on the creation of the website.  Via the website, this project can reach students from different schools within or outside the district.  The potential number of students that would be reached may reach to the hundreds over the years.  Through the website as well, teachers from different schools may also desire to participate or may want to implement the same project. 

In addition, the community and parents may become involved.  A goal of this project is for students to become interested in health and as a result change their diet and exercise activities in order to be healthier.  This sense of change can affect home lifestyle.  The community can also become involved by changing certain laws: example: allowing healthier snacks at school vending machines or school menus.  This would mean the school itself could change in order to be in more equal agreement with the project. 

Grant: Evaluation

            This unit project is one that will not only increase student 's knowledge of nutrition and the body systems, but it will also have an impact on the way students live their lives.  Throughout the semester there will be various short quizzes over topics covered on a daily basis and there will be an end of unit examination.  This way students will be forced to keep up with material and not wait until the end of the unit to study. Not to mention, they will be able to further understand what they do on a daily basis.  Also, after the first and second 1/3 of the unit, students will present on their assigned project.  These projects will force students to keep a daily record of their diet and exercise as well as compare their data to an "ideal healthy diet plan".

            By presenting students with facts about how diet and exercise affect the body both physiologically and psychologically students will be forced to reconsider their own health.  The teacher can look at student 's daily log of diet and exercise to research as to whether or not the student is actually changing and continue to encourage this change.  This will provide the teacher with insight into the student 's lives and application of their learning far beyond what any examination could provide.

            It is obviously ultimately up to the student to decide to make a lifestyle change. But after spending 4 weeks learning about the benefits of a healthy diet as well as observing these benefits shown in videos, demonstrations, lecture, and research, hopefully students will make this choice.

Budget

Item Description	Unit Price	Quantity	Total
>Pair scissors	$1.39	1	$1.39
1lb box of rubber bands	$3.79	1	$3.79
2lb Modeling clay	$2.42	2	$4.84
Three-way hose connectors	$4.75	5	$23.75
>Roll butcher paper 40lb 15 ' x' 1000 '	$26.97	1	$26.97
"3-Part Digestive System" skeleton	$449.95	1	$449.95
Heart-rate monitor-"Polar A 1 heart-rate monitor"	$39.95	1	$39.95
50 ft surgical tubing	$4.75	1	$4.75
30 medium-sized balloons per class	$7.98	5	$39.90
30 22" x 28" Poster boards	$11.97	1	$11.97
"Day-Timer Slim Planner" 3" x 4.5" pkg of 30	$6.49	5	$973.50
Set of 12 markers	$3.99	5	$19.95
Pedometer (CW Promotional)	$4.69	75	$351.75
Diet Analysis Version 6.1 program---Used	$12.98	15	$194.70
Calorie "Fit-Day" Counter Software (downloadable version)	$29.95	15	$449.25
TOTAL Requested Funds			$2,596.41

Provided by School/Students/Teacher

Item Description	Unit Price	Quantity	Total
Nutrition labels:10 fried chicken, 10 grilled chicken, 10 peanut butter, 10 chocolate chip cookie, 10 pasta, 10 milk-Provided by students and teacher	$0.00	60	$0.00
Computers with internet access	$1999.99	15	($29999.85)
Graphing Calculators	$89.99	30	($2699.70)
one-liter plastic bottles	$0.00	5	$0.00