Teacher Notes
This page lists all teacher notes for this lesson. Individual notes can be accessed on the main Teacher Notes page.
Introduction (15-20 minutes)
In this activity, students will complete the "Fast Food Challenge," a series of five questions about fast food and obesity. Afterward, ask them to discuss their reactions to the questions. Explain that in this lesson, they will be examining fast food and its relationship to America's growing obesity problem. Let them know that they will conduct research and then tackle an engineering project: designing a fast food meal for children aged 4 to 8 that is healthy and tastes great.
Standards Addressed:
Health Standard 6.3
ﾠ
What Is Obesity? (45 minutes)
In this activity, students will create a concept map describing their knowledge of obesity. Before the activity begins, hand out the students' Engineering Portfolios. Let your class know that they will use these portfolios over the course of the lesson to investigate the relationship between obesity and fast food. The first page of the portfolio contains a concept map that your students can use to organize their thoughts and ideas about obesity. Alternatively, you may ask students to work with websites like
VoiceThread
and
bubbl.us
, or tools like Inspiration software, to record their ideas. Once the students have finished their research, facilitate a classroom discussion in order to incorporate everyone's ideas into one concise definition of obesity. Ask students:
- How did you first define obesity?
- How did your definition change as you conducted your research?
- What did you find to be the causes of obesity?
- What are some health effects of obesity?
- How can people fight obesity?
Standards Addressed:
Health Standard 1,
Health Standard 3,
Health Standards 6,
WHST.9-10.7,
SSOP4,
SSOP5
ﾠ
Fast Food Marketing (45 minutes – 1 hour)
In this activity, students will examine marketing practices. Before beginning, have students turn to page 5 of the students' Engineering Portfolios. After students watch the "Art of Rhetoric" video, ask them to think about popular commercials that use these techniques. You may want to show a sampling of commercials and have the students identify which techniques are used. After students read about the fast food industry's marketing to children, ask for their opinions on the ethics behind the issue. They should write their responses in their Engineering Portfolios.
Standards Addressed:
Health Standard 1,
Health Standard 3,
Health Standard 6,
WHST.9-10.7,
SSOP3,
SSOP4,
SSOP5,
MTESC – The Designed World
ﾠ
Food and Nutrition (45 minutes – 1 hour)
This activity introduces students to the meaning of "nutrients" and "calories." Make sure that students understand the role that each plays in a healthy diet. Guide students to an understanding of the basic nutrients, the role they play in maintaining good health, and the connection between food intake and energy. Quickly review photosynthesis and cellular respiration with your students as well. The goal is to refresh their basic understanding that one process uses energy to make food and the other uses food to make energy. Have students complete page 2 in their Engineering Portfolios.
Standards Addressed:
Health Standard 1,
Health Standard 3,
Health Standards 6,
WHST.9-10.7,
SSOP1,
SSOP2,
CLG 3.1.3
ﾠ
Typical Fast Food Meal (45 minutes)
This activity is meant to give students a brief overview of nutrition guidelines. Before beginning, have students go to page 3 of their Engineering Portfolios. As they explore the resources provided, encourage students to take notes and answer the questions in their portfolios.
Standards Addressed:
Health Standard 1,
WHST.9-10.7,
SSOP3
ﾠ
Supersizing (45 minutes – 1 hour)
Students will investigate the growth of portion sizes in this activity. Have students read the online articles and take notes on page 4 of their Engineering Portfolios. You may wish to lead a class discussion about their findings and reactions.
Standards Addressed:
Health Standard 1,
Health Standard 3,
Health Standard 6,
WHST.9-10.7,
SSOP3
ﾠ
Fast Food Marketing (45 minutes – 1 hour)
In this activity, students will examine marketing practices. Before beginning, have students turn to page 5 of the students' Engineering Portfolios. After students watch the "Art of Rhetoric" video, ask them to think about popular commercials that use these techniques. You may want to show a sampling of commercials and have the students identify which techniques are used. After students read about the fast food industry's marketing to children, ask for their opinions on the ethics behind the issue. They should write their responses in their Engineering Portfolios.
Standards Addressed:
Health Standard 1,
Health Standard 3,
Health Standard 6,
WHST.9-10.7,
SSOP3,
SSOP4,
SSOP5,
MTESC – The Designed World
ﾠ
A Legal Matter (1-1 ½ hours)
In this activity, students will consider a lawsuit brought by two obese teenagers against McDonald's. Before beginning the activity, have students turn to page 6 of their Engineering Portfolios. Ask students to take notes as they research the case, and encourage students to think critically about each resource.
After students complete their research, you may wish to conduct a class discussion. Ask students whether they think the lawsuit was frivolous or justified. Ask them for evidence to support their argument, and which evidence or reasoning they find most convincing. Students should also consider how they would respond to evidence that supports the other side. The discussion will prepare students to write their argumentative essays.
After the discussion, students should choose a position and write an argumentative essay. Students must justify their arguments using evidence. They may reference quotes from the articles, statistics or data from other sources, or provide a reasoned response based on critical thinking.
Standards Addressed:
Health Standard 3,
Health Standard 6,
WHST.9-10.7,
SSOP3
ﾠ
Your Challenge (15-20 minutes)
In this activity, students will receive their challenge to create a healthy fast food children's meal. Go over the criteria and make sure that your students understand each point.
Standards Addressed:
Health Standard 1.1,
SSOP5
ﾠ
The Engineering Design Process (45 minutes)
Before beginning this activity, divide your class into STEM teams of 3-4 students each. Students will need to work in STEM teams for the remainder of the lesson. (See Appendix C for more information on forming STEM teams.) Have students turn to page 7 of their Engineering Portfolios before the activity begins. After students watch the introductory videos, go over the steps in the engineering design process and make sure that students understand what each step means. Ask them to use the information they have collected and brainstorm new ideas with their team to complete questions 1-4.
Standards Addressed:
Health Standard 1.1,
SSOP6,
MTESC – Engineering Design and Development,
MTESC – The Impacts of Technology
ﾠ
Explore Possibilities (15 minutes)
Students will consider how they may explore other disciplines in completing their challenge. You may introduce the next few activities in your own class, collaborate with teachers in other disciplines, or use online collaboration tools to allow students to take on some of the work in other classes and report back.
Standards Addressed:
SSOP2,
MTESC – Engineering Design and Development
Explore Possibilities: Mathematics (1- 1 ½ hours)
In this activity, students will explore the USDA nutritional guidelines and determine whether currently available children's meals fit the bill. Have students turn to pages 8 and 9 of their Engineering Portfolios. Assist students as they explore the
MyPlate
website and look up the recommended nutritional guidelines for kids. (The USDA recommends about 1300 calories a day for 4- to 8-year-old children, meaning that a lunch that contains one third of their daily calories should be about 433 calories.)
Next, ask students to move on to analyzing the sampling of children's meal data from a national fast food chain. Have students answer the related questions in their Engineering Portfolios, or, if you wish, work together as a class to answer the questions.
If your students would like to explore nutrition in more depth, encourage them to visit the website in More to Explore.
Standards Addressed:
CCSS-S.ID.2,
SSOP1,
MTESC – Engineering Design and Development
Explore Possibilities: Biology (1- 1 ½ hours)
In this activity, students will have the opportunity to test fast food children's meals. If you have access to a wet lab, consider having your students—or another biology class—conduct a macromolecule lab to test for protein, fat, simple carbohydrates (sugar) and complex carbohydrates (starch) in the children's meals you have assigned. The following website may be used as a teacher resource for conducting the lab:
> Testing for Lipids, Proteins and Carbohydrates
(from Science & Health Education Partnership/UC San Francisco)
As students complete the lab, have them record their work on page 10 of their Engineering Portfolios. When they are finished, have them turn to page 11, which contains instructions on how to write up a lab report.
Standards Addressed:
HS-LS1-6,
HS-LS1-7,
WHST.9-10.2,
RST.9-10.3,
RST.9-10.4,
SSOP1,
SSOP5,
MATESC – Engineering Design and Development
ﾠ
Explore Possibilities: Social Studies (45 minutes- 1 hour)
Students will explore the spread of the obesity epidemic across the globe in this activity, and will investigate fast food menus overseas. Assist students as they explore the resources and take notes on page 12 in their Engineering Portfolios.
Standards Addressed:
RH.9-10.9,
Health Standard 3.A.1,
SSOP2,
MTESC – Engineering Design and Development
ﾠ
Explore Possibilities: Health (45 minutes)
In this activity, students will begin planning menus for some possible children's meals. Assist students as they work, and remind them that their meals will need to fulfill the criteria that they previously recorded in their Engineering Portfolios. Encourage students to look back in their portfolios or conduct additional research to find the information they need to develop ideas for their meals.
Encourage students to visit a local grocery store to estimate costs for their ingredients. You may also want to post average prices for the food that students are using. Remind students that the cost to produce their meal should not exceed $6 for one serving.
Standards Addressed:
Health Standard 1,
Health Standard 6,
WHST.9-10.7,
SSOP5,
MTESC – Engineering Design and Development
ﾠ
Select an Approach and Design Your Proposal (45 minutes – 1 hour)
Students will select their best idea for a children's meal and develop a more detailed design proposal in this lesson. Before students begin, have them turn to page 15 of their Engineering Portfolios. Be available for questions as students continue to work in their STEM teams to develop their proposals. Note that you will need to examine ingredient lists and be prepared to reject some items if they exceed your budget.
Standards Addressed:
Health Standard 1.1,
WHST.9-10.2,
SSOP5,
MTESC – Engineering Design and Development,
MTESC – The Nature of Technology
ﾠ
Make a Prototype and Test Your Design (1 – 1½ hours depending on food prep time and surveying)
Students will create their children's meal and solicit feedback from taste testers in this activity. Before class begins, you will need to buy the food required for your students to make their recipes—or you will need to arrange with students to buy ingredients themselves. Keep track of the price of ingredients so that you can verify that each team's meal costs $6 or less. (Note that students will be preparing meals twice—in the prototype phase now, and then when they refine their design after gathering feedback.) You may wish to make arrangements with family consumer science or culinary students to prepare the food. Students may also make arrangements to prepare their meals at home. Assist students with planning the preparation of their meals with their STEM teams. Students will time themselves as they prepare the meals, making sure that all the meals can be prepared in ten minutes or less. If possible, have students take and print pictures of their meals to include on page 19 in their portfolios.
Next, arrange for them to taste test their meals with another group of students or younger children, if possible. Remind students to gather feedback on their meals using the survey on page 20 in their Engineering Portfolios.
Standards Addressed:
Health Standard 3,
SSOP3,
SSOP5,
MTESC – Engineering Design and Development
ﾠ
Refine Your Design and Create Your Final Kids' Meal (1 hour)
In this activity, students will refine their meal to respond to feedback from taste testers. Work with groups as they figure out how to refine their design to respond to feedback. Remind them that they will need to recalculate calories, stay within their budget and allow prep time for their final meal.
Standards Addressed:
Health Standard 1.1,
SSOP5,
MTESC – Engineering Design and Development
ﾠ
Communicate Your Results (1 - 1½ hours depending on sophistication of advertisements)
In this activity, students will work in their STEM teams to create a print or video advertisement that publicizes their children's meal and describes their work in creating it. Have students turn to page 18 of their Engineering Portfolios before they begin. Let them know that their advertisement will serve to let the public know about the meal they have created, and it will also serve as an assessment of their work over the course of the lesson. Share with them the rubric that will be used to grade their work.
You will also need to give some thought to putting together a panel to receive and help judge the students' presentations. You could invite a manager or executive of a local fast food restaurant, the head of your school cafeteria, or other teachers or parents who can volunteer to serve on the panel. As an alternative, you could also ask students to make presentations at the next PTA meeting or other community meeting for an authentic audience of parents and students. Students could also upload their presentations to the school's website and ask for feedback online.
Standards Addressed:
WHST. 9-10.1,
WHST.9-10.2,
SSOP3,
MTESC – Engineering Design and Development
ﾠ
