Sugar!

Blog Post #6­

With the successful beta test of my curriculum, I achieved my goal. I wanted the children to learn about the effects of excess sugar and they did. They learned facts about sugar, how it affects the body, what is bad about eating too much of it, and ways to reduce how much of it they eat.  They had fun with the curriculum and I hope that fun helps them remember the important facts they learned and reduces the amount of sugar they eat throughout their lives.

If I had another semester to work on this, I would develop a complementary curriculum for the parents. Parents buy their children’s food, so even if the children know about sugar, they may not have healthy food available. If the parents learn about sugar at the same time, they will be able to help improve the kids’ eating habits. The best time for a parental sugar class would be during pregnancy. This way, the parents, who want the best for their children, will be able to start building healthy eating habits from the start.

I have learned a lot through the 20 Time project. I learned how to conduct research and compile the information gathered. This is a valuable tool that I will use in college. The information I learned about sugar also helped my family and me improve our diets. This will help my health throughout my life and enable me to provide advice to others.

I believe my Ted Talk was a success. I conveyed what I had learned from my research and described the curriculum. Preparing for and talking in front of the class was also a valuable experience and I believe it went well.  One way I prepared was to turn on our TV, mute it, and then practice my presentation while watching. This helped me get used to visual distractions in the audience and was a great way to determine how well I knew the content.  Overall, 20 Time has been a great experience!

The Curriculum

Blog Post #5

With all the weeks of research, I wrote a curriculum about sugar addiction. Originally, I wanted the curriculum to be for a short time each day, over the course of a week. For example, one day would be about the basics of sugar and the next day would be about sugary drinks.  However, since I am beta-testing the curriculum on the children I babysit, I have to structure it as a single lesson. Following is the basic outline of the curriculum:

1. Ask what the children know about sugar.  Questions to ask may include: Do you guys like eating candy? How do you feel after eating it? Do you feel really energetic after eating it? Do you think a lot of sugar is good or bad for you?

2. Play a true or false game with the children. 

• Make index cards with facts about sugar on each and then have the kids categorize each one as true or false.
• True
• Children ages 4 to 8 eat about 21 teaspoons of added sugar each day (I will hold up that amount with sugar packets).
• Children ages 4 to 8 should limit added sugar to about 3 teaspoons a day (I will hold up that amount with sugar packets).
• You are born with a sweet tooth.
• Soda and juice are the No. 1 source of added sugar.
• There is hidden sugar in foods that do not taste sweet, such as pasta and BBQ sauce.
• False
• Sugar does not occur naturally in fruits and vegetables.  
• It is not possible to become addicted to sugar.
• Apples, bananas, and oranges do not have sugar in them.

3. Find 2 foods and 2 drinks in the kitchen and measure the amount of sugar in each.

• Compare the amount of sugar in each food item with how much a person should eat in one day

4. Talk about the activities.

• Discuss each activity and conclude with how bad excess sugar is for your health, talk about natural versus added sugar, and give them suggestions on how to reduce the amount of sugar they eat.

On Wednesday, I babysat a six year old boy and an eight year old girl. They are the target age for my curriculum, so I was excited to see how the curriculum would work. The girl has a big sweet tooth. She is always sneaking a cookie or a spoonful of nutella.  When I asked what they already know about sugar, they said things such as, “its in candy”, “I get a stomach ache if I eat too much”, and “I love chocolate”. They both knew it was bad for their health, but they had no idea why it is bad or what effect it had on their body. They chose to measure the sugar in lemonade, apple juice , Coco Puff Cereal and a Kit Kat. They were surprised by how much sugar was in each, and by how many health problems can be caused by eating too much sugar.

Based on my interaction with the two kids, I decided that the other children I babysit are too young to understand the curriculum. For this reason, I think the best age for this curriculum is 2nd or 3rd grade.

Overall, I believe the curriculum was a success and that the kids learned a lot about sugar.  However, I do not know if it will change how they eat, or how long they will remember what they learned.  Next, I plan on refining the curriculum and brainstorming how best to make it memorable and effective at reducing sugar addiction.