Baylor College
What's That Food?
Get things cooking with the first lesson plan in this series on the science of food. Working in small groups, young scientists make and record observations about different mystery foods. These descriptions are then shared with the class...
Curated OER
Child Nutrition Unit
How much fun can you have teaching adolescents about nutrition? Try taking them to work with preschoolers for an hour! This 4-day mini-unit about the importance of nutrition early in life culminates with a field trip. It was written for...
Elementary CORE Academy
Food Foldable
There's nothing as satisfying as a crunchy carrot or a juicy apple! Teach your middle and high schoolers about healthy eating habits with a set of nutrition activities. After analyzing the model of the food pyramid, learners apply the...
Baylor College
Food Webs
Explore various ecosystems from around the world as your class discovers the interdependence of all living things. Using the provided sets of ecosystem cards, young scientists work in small groups building food webs to demonstrate the...
US Department of Agriculture
Serving Up My Plate
Offer your youngsters an extra helping of nutritional knowledge and healthy tips with this resource, which centers around the MyPlate nutritional guide and offers three "courses" of plans and worksheets on the food groups and the...
Curated OER
Growing Minds: My Plate
Examine food choices and the nutritional properties of food groups with this visually appealing whole-class lesson plan. This will take a bit of preparation, but once you do it, you can use the materials for years. Using a food groups...
Cartwells
MyPlate Lesson and Relay
Youngsters are up and moving in an exciting relay race designed to help them better understand where common foods fall on the MyPlate nutritional guidelines. Working in teams, they identify images of foods and name what food groups they...
Nemours KidsHealth
Food Labels: Grades 9-12
Check the label! That's the big idea in a lesson plan about using the nutrition facts on food labels rather than advertising hype to make healthy choices about what to eat. After reading background articles and learning how to read...
Curated OER
Getting Help: Food Stamps and Nutrition Programs
Here is another lesson regarding the law. This time, the laws that dictate eligibility for food stamps is the focus. After an initial discussion about the basics of the laws, learners do a case study of a family who is applying for food...
John Hopkins University
Diets and Influence on Food Choice
From start to finish, this is a truly excellent lesson plan addressing the epidemic of diet-related disease in the United States. Learners begin with a reading excerpt of detailed information on trends in the American diet and the...
Baylor College
Serving Sizes
Are serving sizes for different foods always appropriate for what you need? In this hands-on activity, learners work in groups to estimate what one serving size of various foods are, and then evaluate their hypotheses by measuring real...
Curated OER
What's on My Plate?
Kids work together in groups to discuss and understand the differences between a typical diet and a healthy one. They use the My Plate recommendations to compare what they eat with what they should be eating according to the MyPlate...
Nuffield Foundation
How Much Energy Is There in Food?
People associate calories with food, but what is a calorie? Young scientists measure the number of calories in samples of food to better understand the concept. They test a variety of samples, take measurements, and compare their results...
One Hen
Making Choices
When choosing what foods to eat, there are a lot of factors to consider. To help make the decision a little easier, young learners work in small groups developing short plays, stories, or advertisements that address the different issues...
BioEd Online
Nutritional Challenges
Eating healthy can be a challenge, especially for people with special dietary needs. After learning about standard nutritional needs for adults, learners take on the role of a dietician and work together to create a menu for one of the...
Media Smarts
Packaging Tricks
As part of their study of how advertisers use various techniques to influence consumers, kids examine the design, the promotions, and the product placement in the packaging of their favorite foods.
Food a Fact of Life
Meal Appeal
To demonstrate their mastery of time management and kitchen organization skills, groups prepare either a shepherd's pie, lasagne, or spaghetti bolognese.
eGFI
Lesson: Guilt-Free Chocolate
Experiment with chocolate coating on cookies! What a delightful way to learn about food processing and chemical engineering. Throughout this activity, groups collect measurements and make calculations. They conclude by writing...
Curated OER
Snack Smart Move More
Show your kids that staying healthy is the smart choice! They examine nutrition, healthy snacks, and the importance of staying active in a several-part lesson plan. There are different ideas for older and younger students here, and you...
Nemours KidsHealth
Healthy Snacking: Grades 9-12
Snacks—even the word can conger up a hunger. Rapidly growing teens, especially, rely on snacks to get them from one meal to the next. After reading a series of articles about nutrition and healthy snack choices, pupils fill out a report...
Cooking Matters
Cooking Matters: For Chefs and Kids
Get your scholars cooking with a collection of activities that pairs the class to a community chef, promotes healthy snacking and drinking, and explores fruits and vegetables. Lower elementary learners create vegetable super heroes,...
Nemours KidsHealth
Breakfast: Grades 9-12
Sleep and food are brain fuels, and teens require a lot of both, but getting high schoolers up in time to have a healthy breakfast before they charge off to school can be a challenge. To meet this challenge, scholars first set up a...
Nemours KidsHealth
School Lunch: Grades 6-8
School lunches are the focus of two learning activities. Activity one challenges small groups to create a lunch menu for an imaginary cafe. Activity two sheds light on one's afternoon eating habits. Asking scholars to record what they...
Agriculture in the Classroom
Understanding the Columbian Exchange Through Old World and New World Foods
If you're interested in teaching your class about the impact of the Columbian Exchange on contemporary society, this is worth a look. The plan begins with an introduction to the topic, which stems from a cell phone poll...