Greg+Myers+6-C-1

**Subjects:** Health 9 **Time:** Three class periods **Grade level:** 10-12 **Lesson Objectives:** Students will: **Overview:** Few will disagree that fast foods are a staple in the diets of many Americans. Even our nation's schools feature vending machines full of foods that are high in calories, short on nutrition, and all too easy to buy. With busy lifestyles and complicated schedules, what are the long term effects of a diet high in saturated fats? What about all the "good carbs" and "bad carbs" we have been hearing so much about? In this three part lesson, students will examine nutrition labels for caloric intake using various snack foods. Then, they will determine the number of calories in a food item. Finally, they will conduct a research project in which they examine the food choices of their classmates. **Materials**
 * understand the ways in which nutritional food labels are read and used on common foods
 * determine the number of calories in a peanut (or the amount of fat in potato chips) so that comparisons to other foods can be made
 * understand the detrimental effects of fats on the body and their relationship to heart disease, diabetes, and obesity
 * increase awareness of healthy food choices for themselves and their classmates by designing and conducting a scientific experiment using observational skills and data analysis
 * Internet access
 * NewsHour transcript: "Fighting Fat," []
 * NewsHour transcript: "Fast Food Nation," []
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Several bags or boxes of "snack foods"
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dry measuring devices including measuring cups and spoons
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Calculators
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Student and Teacher sheets borrowed from [|NASAexplores.com]: <span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> [] and []