Great lesson-Blogger 201

Whenever I teach 7th grade Science (5 out of 7 years), I have done a lesson that my mentor showed me my first year. During EO 4, Digestion & Nutrition, we do a label lab. In this lab, the students answere questions about the major food groups and then use real labels of the food that they eat to fill out a chart. The chart asks for two examples from each food group; dairy, veggies, fruits, meat/protein, grains & oils/sweets. EVery year this lab is done with the same basic questions and same basic learning outcomes. This year was different.

I wanted to do more differentiation in the class this year  in both my history and science classes. SO the week before this lab (the start of 3rd quarter), I told all my classes that if they were interested in taking a subject to another level, I would work with them. I had a group of girls from each class that were really interested in learning more about nutrition and how they could inform others to eat better. This led to meeting everyday for lunch and during guided study and developed into the grand ide that they could get the school district to adopt healthier lunches and revamp the school lunch programs.   They have taken this to the superintendent and are in our newly created summer school nutrition class to work on the items he requested they look into. The entire group is also moving with me up to 8th grade so we can continue our work together. 

That was a simple lesson that turned in to a great projects.