Vance Lesson

Merit Winner:
TMA Excellence in Science Teaching Awards

Classifying Space Food

Objective

To classify the space food manifested on the Space Shuttle or International Space Station food lists into the major food groups found in the Food Pyramid Guide in order to promote good eating habits. These objectives will address the following science standards:

• Science as Inquiry: Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry
• Science in Personal and Social Perspectives: Personal health

The Appendixes came from the Space Food and Nutrition Educator's Guide.  The learning objectives are original. I wanted the students to focus on the impacts on the planning and designing.  Also, for the students to see what a balanced diet is through the use of the astronaut's nutritional diet.  As we know most of our young people don't eat a balanced diet.  By having the students compare what the astronauts eats and what they eat they can make informed decisions using critical thinking skills about their eating habits. My main purpose was to make a different in my students eating habits so they want run into future health problems.

Materials Needed

Baseline Space Shuttle Food and Beverage List (Appendix A)

International Space Station Daily Menu Food List (Appendix B)

USDA Food Guide Pyramid (Appendix G)

Background

The Food Guide Pyramid has been established to help people maintain a diet that is adequate in nutritional value.  Maintaining good health in space is important, and to help do this, a good diet is imperative.  Balanced meals of good nutritional food will help ensure that the astronauts will be able to perform their jobs in space.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has made recommendations for a healthy diet.  Foods are grouped according to the nutrients they provide.  Many foods, such as corn, are hard to place into specific group.  Sweet corn can be counted as a starchy vegetable, but corn tortillas are in the grain group.  Dry beans and peas (legumes) can be counted as either a starchy vegetable or a meat.

Procedure

Examples from the six major food groups (grain, vegetable, fruit, dairy, meat, and oil) would be on display at the front of the classroom.  By doing this I wanted to create knowledge through vision.  In a changing world, visually stimulating students is a very important part of their education.

Using the Baseline Space Shuttle Food and Beverage List or the International Space Station Daily Menu Food List, classify the foods in the major groups.

The students are grouped in-groups of four to employ cooperative learning skills and collaboration.

In the group discussion of the classification of the food lists into the major food groups, when a student expand or elaborate on a positive point/idea on eating a balanced meal, or relating good nutritional habits, they get a dollar bill in play money to use toward buying items from the classroom store that opens each Friday.  The store is open each Friday to buy items like books, basketball cards, posters, bottle water, mechanical pencils, stuff animals and many others.  I try to bring variety in the selection of items for the classroom store.  Students gain coupons when they use critical thinking skills on any activity that we do.

Discussion

Which foods did you find that can fit into more than one food group?

In your opinion, which food group had the better selection of foods?

Why is it important to maintain good health in space?

How does a balanced diet maintain good health?

Conclusion

Students are seeing patterns, analyzing information, using critical thinking skills, making comparison and sound decisions.  I ask lots of questions and encourage students to question each other.

Journal Writing

Students will write a written summary of what they have learned about the astronaut nutritional diet in comparison with their own diet habits.  This gives me a picture of what the student understands he or she thinks, and a direction for instruction of each student.

Assessment

The students will compare and contrast their findings.

Teacher observations and questioning:

I move around the room, watching, listening, and assessing. The opportunities for logical reasoning, problem solving, analysis and communication are numerous and spontaneous.

This lesson broaden students knowledge of what astronauts nutritional diets consist of, which food group had what selection of foods, how it is important to maintain good health in Space as well as on earth, and how a balanced diet maintain good health.  This activity stimulated the student's interest.  They were constantly asking sound questions, and was concern about their health and eating habits, which was my main purpose in doing this activity.  What make this activity effective are the abilities of the students to do scientific inquiry and the knowledge learned about personal health.  Before doing this activity the students were not aware of how important it is to maintain a diet that is adequate in nutritional value.  When they learned how important balanced meals of good nutritional food will help ensure that the astronauts will be able to perform their jobs in space, then they started to make comparison with their own diets.   The students realized how important a balanced diet is to their future health and that is the point I wanted to get across to them.  Science education is the key for our students and education is the way out.

Extensions

1. Have the class design their own ISS food menu for a 30-day crew rotation or Space Shuttle food menu for a 7-day rotation.  Have them analyze how many times a particular food or drink item was served and if some items were served in combination with another (such as fish always served with french fries).  Avoid monotonous or repetitive selection by increasing the variety of food choices.
2. Using a computer, create a data base file.  Design a data base template that includes fields such as day (l, 2,3, etc.), meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a possible snack), and the six major food groups.  Enter the information from the menus and determine which meals are balanced ones by searching for any empty fields in the food groups.

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