High School PE Lesson Ideas

Name of Activity: The Fast Food Quiz

Purpose of Activity: This activity is designed to show students how difficult it can be to make healthy food choices and to help them understand the nutritional information available for a variety of foods. This lesson is done at the start of a nutrition unit that I teach in a Cardio Fitness class. It was developed after I realized that many students had no idea how to make good food choices, or how to interpret nutritional information. Many students are keen to adopt or maintain a healthy active lifestyle, yet neglect to ensure that they are eating from all the food groups and that they are consuming nutritious food that is beneficial to them.

Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of the main food groups.

Suggested Grade Level: 9-12

Materials Needed: 10 stations with activity cards, equipment for each station (determined by station choices), fast food logos, 10 questions with fast food logos attached, 10 cover sheets to put over the questions (a blank piece of paper usually suffices), 1 answer sheet for each student.

Handouts:

Fast Food Quiz Nutrition Questions
Fast Food Quiz Answer Sheet
Fast Food Quiz Resources

Description of Idea

Assessment Ideas:

*Student answer sheets

*Student projects that incorporate selecting healthy meals from various fast food restaurants

Teaching Suggestions:

For the questions, I used nutritional information available online for a variety of fast food restaurants and turned it into questions. For example, students were asked to select the meal which they thought contained the least amount of fat or calorie, when given a range of choices. I also use the portion distortion quiz, located at

http://hp2010.nhlbihin.net/portion/

to show the students how portion sizes have changed over time.

Extension questions: I verbally ask students what they know and understand about various nutritional components and terms used in the stations e.g. What role does fiber play? Why do we want to limit our intake of saturated fat? What words or ingredients help you determine if a food choice might be higher in sodium? You could also add these as extension questions to be completed during or after the activity.

Adaptations for Students with Disabilities:

The station activities could be adapted to meet the needs of the students, either by offering different stations or by reducing the number of required reps at each station.