Get Out and Enjoy Nature

Lesson Overview

This lesson helps young people understand the benefits of outside play for their bodies and minds. The youth will participate in three hands-on activities that show some of the many ways they can enjoy being outdoors.

Instructor Notes

Before facilitating this lesson, you may want to review the following information about the benefits of outdoor play. These facts can be shared with young people during your discussions.

Outdoor play can help the body by:

increasing fitness levels and building active, healthy bodies
raising levels of Vitamin D which helps protect bone strength and may help in the prevention of chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes
may help improve distance vision
may help you breathe easier.

Outdoor play can help the mind by:

improving focus throughout the day
helping kids score higher on tests
improving critical thinking on projects.

Outdoor play can help the spirit by:

lowering stress levels
protecting emotional development and lowering the risk of anxiety and depression
enhancing social interactions and helping kids value community
enhancing sleep duration and quality.

Activity: Outdoor Energy Boost

This activity demonstrates how our mood can improve simply by going outdoors for a short period of time.

Before going outside, have each young person report on how they are feeling. Write their answers on the whiteboard or smart board.
When they come back inside, ask them again how they are feeling. Write their answers down again. Ask the youth what differences they see. Do they feel happy or sad, tired or lively, restless or calm? Did they feel like they have more energy since going outside?
After all the results are in, show the young people some of the differences. For instance if 5 people were tired before going outside, and 1 was tired after going outside, then you can form a hypothesis that going outside makes most people less tired. If your group of young people would rather play on the computer or watch TV, let them know that these ‘screen’ activities could make them feel more tired and less energetic. So, the more you are able to get outside creating, playing, and working the more energy you will have.
Tell them some of the positive benefits of outdoor play, such as builds healthy bones, improves mood, fresh air can help us breathe easier, and help us sleep better at night.

Activity: Creature – An Outdoor Art Project

This activity allows youth to use their imagination and creativity to look at nature in a whole new way.

Give each young person a paper bag to bring outside to collect treasures. Tell them they will be making a creature/bug/monster when they have all their supplies.
Have them think about the creature they want to make, then offer clues like collecting a rock for the body, twigs for legs, leaves for wings, and tree seeds for scales. Let them be creative.
Once all the supplies are collected, have the youth glue their creature together and allow time to dry. Have each young person show and tell about their creatures.

Activity: Dig in the Dirt

Most children do not even know what soil ‘feels’ like, they walk on sidewalks. Some days kids do not even get to walk on grass, most have never gardened. This activity has proven to slow kids down and ground them, meaning to get them back to the basics of earth, away from technology. Spending time feeling, touching and describing soil and other nature made materials has been proven to reduce stress and anxiety.

Have a bucket of soil for the young people to feel the texture.
Have the young person describe the feeling.
Write their descriptions on the board.

Conclusion

Remind young people that playing outside has many benefits for their bodies and minds. Ask the youth to brainstorm other fun activities they can do outside. Encourage them to get outside and enjoy the outdoors everyday!

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, so that families can discuss ways to get outside and have fun together.

Related Health Powered Kids Blog

Exercise to help the body, mind and spirit

Additional Instructor Resources

Book: Growing Vegetable Soup, by Lois Ehlert
Outdoor Activity Finder by the National Wildlife Federation

Gardening – Growing Goodness!

Lesson Overview

This lesson helps young people understand where healthy food comes from. The youth will discuss what kind of plants produce their favorite fruits and vegetables. Then they will try out gardening themselves by planting some bean seeds and watching the plants grow.

Introduction

Ask the young people where our food comes from. Give the youth a couple of minutes to share with another person where they think certain fruits and vegetables grow. Discuss their thoughts as a group. You may want to mention the following points:
- All food has to “grow” somewhere, whether it’s an animal for meat, grains for processing into flour and other products, or artificial flavorings made in a lab to mimic whole food flavors found in nature. Artificial flavorings and colors are used in some candies and flavored drink mixes.
- It’s good to eat foods as close to their natural state as possible. Fruits and vegetables are the easiest type of food to find in a natural state. That means that not much has been done to them before they get to us. Foods that come in boxes and can be stored on shelves for months, for example, have been processed and have had things added to them to preserve them long before they get to us, in particular lots of them may have added sugar.
- The sugar that is in fruits is different from the sugar in candy. The sugar in fruit is a natural sugar that is not made from many different chemicals like those found in candy, cookies, cereal and other sweetened treats, that’s known as processed sugar. Foods direct from the earth, no matter how sweet, are the healthiest foods for people to eat. So just where do our fruits and vegetables come from? Fruits and vegetables grow in many different ways. They can grow on trees like apples do, or they can grow underground from a root like a carrot. They also grow on vines and bushes.
Download the interactive whiteboard activity from the What You Need section above. The goal of the activity is to match up the fruit or vegetable with the growing location whether it’s underground, above ground on the surface, or on a tree.
Were they able to match certain fruits and vegetables to the type of plant they grow on such as underground, on a vine or in a tree?

Activity: Plant a Garden

Talk about: Why are gardens healthy? Growing a garden can be beneficial in more ways than just getting healthy food. Gardening can help people relax. It can also be a time for family bonding if you work together in the garden. Gardening can even be a type of physical activity. Furthermore, seeds are cheap to buy, so why not grow your own food and save some money?
Plant a mini garden. Have the young people plant their own green beans. You can split the youth into groups of four so they can plant one as a group, or you can hand out clear plastic cups to all young people to plant their own. However you wish to do this, you will need to handout a clear plastic cup (16 ounces) to everyone who will be planting seeds. Follow these steps for a successful gardening project:
- Each young person or group will need to write their names on the cup so they know whose is whose.
- Next use a thumbtack to poke a few holes in the bottom of the cup to let the extra water drain.
- Once this is done, each cup will need to be loosely packed half way with potting soil. Make sure the soil is moist/damp.
- Then place 5 to 6 seeds near the side of the cup so the youth are able to see them grow through the clear cup.
- Cover the seeds with more moist soil to the top of the cup, and lightly pack it.
- Place plastic wrap over the cups to help keep in the moisture, and place near a window for sunlight.
- Once you see the beans starting to sprout, remove the plastic wrap and water as needed.
- Continue to keep the cup in the sun.
- The cups may need to be put into some sort of tray so the water doesn’t leak.

Activity: Veggie Scramble

If time allows, hand out the Veggie Scramble worksheet. Allow the youth time to complete the word puzzles, then share the correct answers from the Veggie Scramble Answer Key. This worksheet may also be sent home as an enrichment activity.

Conclusion

You can keep the cups in the classroom and note their progress. This provides great informal, ongoing opportunities to talk about nutrition and health. Or you can have the young people bring plants home and care for them there. In that case you can, if you like, ask for periodic reports on how they are growing. Either way, once their plant has grown big enough, young people can transfer their seedlings into a big garden or larger pot at home!

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, which also includes these tips, so that families can continue discussing fresh, healthy foods at home.

Related Health Powered Kids Blog(s)

Additional Instructor Resources

What Kind of Sugar is in Your Food? Handout – (Russian) – (Somali) – (Spanish)

Body Composition

Lesson Overview

Bodies get a lot of attention in our society, some of it not very positive, much of it focused on appearance more than actual health. This lesson helps young people understand different components that make up the structure of the human body. Youth will learn how eating and exercise habits influence how much muscle and fat each person has inside their body.

Instructor Notes

Before facilitating this lesson, you may want to review the following information about body composition. These facts can also be shared with young people during your discussions.

Body weight is the combination of muscle, fat, organs, fluid, tendons, ligaments, and bones.
The human body is made up of about 600 to 700 muscles.
Voluntary muscles attached to the skeleton allow the body to move, while involuntary muscles allow the movement of internal organs.
Voluntary muscles are the muscles that you can move by thinking about it. You can flex your bicep muscle by lifting up your arm and “showing how strong you are.” They are called voluntary because you can make the decision to do it, just like you can volunteer to wash dishes after dinner. Involuntary muscles are those muscles that work automatically; you do not have to think about digesting your food, or flexing your own heart to pump blood around your body.
Ligaments are tissues connecting bones to other bones to form joints.
Tendons connect muscle to bone.
Bone is hardened connective tissue that supports the body, protects organs, and aids movement of the body. Bones store minerals, these minerals are phosphorus, magnesium, fluoride and calcium, and are involved in cell formation. The body is made up of 206 bones.
The heart is an organ. It is also a muscle that pumps blood through the body.
The lungs are organs that exchange oxygen from the air with carbon dioxide from the blood.
Fat is unused energy.
The intestines absorb nutrition from food to be used by the body. They allow the nutrients to enter the blood.
The stomach releases enzymes that break down food into nutrients that can be used by the body.

Introduction

Show the youth the two containers (don’t show the inside). One box is filled with a heavy item the other a lighter item.

Ask: Can you tell what is inside? Both boxes are full.

Let the young people handle the boxes, feeling the differences in weight.

Ask: Do you think both boxes have the same materials inside? Why?

Explain that you can’t tell what is inside the packages by looking at the outside. Our body is just like these packages. We see the outside, but do not know what is inside. Each body is different. All of our bodies have: muscle, fat, organs, fluid, tendons, ligaments, and bones. All these combined make up our total weight.

Activity: Body Components

Looking at how the body is put together will help young people understand that everybody is different. Each person has a unique body and unique needs. Introduce 5 components of the human body.

If you have access to a projector and the proper software, use the the interactive whiteboard files to guide young people through learning about the parts of the body. In unavailable, discuss the following facts with the youth.

Your body is made up of five separate components, each of which has an important role:
- Bones give you height and support your body. How many bones do you have in your body? 206
- Muscles give you movement and strength. How many muscles do you have in your body? 600 to 700
- Internal organs support life. Can you name some of your organs? Skin, stomach, intestines, liver, spleen, pancreas, heart, brain, lungs, gall bladder, kidneys, and bladder.
- Skin keeps you together and your organs inside your body.
- Fat keeps you warm, protected, and provides stored energy.
All of these components change with age and level of activity.
Two people could look alike on the outside and weigh the same, but be very different on the inside. Our eating and exercise habits, along with age and genetics, determine how much muscle and fat each person has inside their body. Eating healthy and being active helps our bodies in the following ways:
- strengthens our muscles
- keeps our heart, lungs, and bones strong
- helps build the right amount of protection and stored energy
- and helps our organs work properly.

If we eat unhealthily and are not active, our muscles and bones become weak, our heart and lungs have to work harder to do their jobs, and sometimes we store extra fat our bodies do not need.

Ask: What happens to your body when you get older (grow taller, gain weight, muscles become stronger)? What are some activities we can do to keep our bodies healthy as we get older? What are some foods we should eat to keep our bodies healthy as we get older? What kinds of food and activities could make you unhealthy and be bad for your body?

Conclusion

Point out that our human beings are amazing and complex! Encourage young people to try to make choices every day that help their bodies be healthy, strong and fit.

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish so that families can continue discussing body composition at home.

Additional Instructor Resources

Body Composition on Reference.com
Midwest Dairy Council Bone Health Brochure

Exercise and Your Brain

Lesson Introduction & Overview

Recent research has found that exercise, particularly aerobic activity that involves an element of coordination, has benefits for young people that go far beyond fitness.

Aerobic activity is any physical activity that increases your heart rate and breathing. It helps improve your heart and lung fitness. Some examples include brisk walking, hiking, jogging/running, biking, swimming, rowing, jumping rope, dancing and aerobics class.

Physical activity has many benefits. In addition to helping build strong bones and muscles, regular physical activity can:

help maintain a healthy weight
reduce the risk for heart disease, diabetes, obesity, certain cancers and joint conditions
reduce levels of anxiety and stress
improve your self-esteem and confidence
help improve concentration and memory
help maintain good blood pressure and cholesterol levels
give you an overall feeling of well-being
build endurance and increase your metabolism
improve your ability to do daily activities
help you relax and sleep better.

Studies have found that young people who participate in even 10 minutes of exercise before a test or other academic activity performed better on those tasks than young people who did not exercise. Other studies have found that young people who participate in physical activity consistently have more academic success than their peers who participate less.

For this lesson, the focus is on empowering young people to exercise regardless of their fitness baseline.

Activity

Session One

Ask young people a series of questions about exercise: Do they like it? What kinds of exercise do they do or do they know that other people do? What are some of the benefits of exercise?

Then introduce the Exercise-Brain Connection and highlight the following points:
• Exercise is good for your body; it helps keep your heart and other muscles strong, your organs working well and your bones healthy.
• Exercise is also good for your mood: exercising can help improve your mood by reducing stress and anxiety.
• Exercise is good for your brain! Not as many people know this, but exercise can help you focus, problem solve, and remember information and ideas.

Then explain that over the next week your class/group will be doing a research study of your own. Here are the steps:
• Each young person will receive a Your Brain After Exercise tracking sheet.
• For one week, young people should rate how well they think they performed on their homework or brain games and track whether or not they exercised beforehand.
• You can provide age-appropriate activities such as word finds, cryptograms, Sudoku puzzles, crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles or online brain games. A simple internet search will provide a variety of resources!
• Encourage young people to exercise for at least 10 minutes sometimes before performing the task, and sometimes not.

Session 2

Ask young people to take out their tracking sheets. Talk about how the week went, what they noticed, what questions they have.

Then create a bar chart showing the results of your study:
• Your X-axis will have two variables: “Yes, I exercised before task” and “No, I did not exercise before task.”
• Your Y-axis will have five variables: the ratings on how they think they performed on their assignments.
• Find the average of all the ratings for times when they did at least 10 minutes of exercise and make that average the first bar.
• Find the average for all the ratings for times when they didn’t do at least 10 minutes of exercise and make that average the second bar.
• Talk about what the bar chart shows. Is there a difference? Why do you think that is so? Did you notice a difference for yourself between times when you exercised and when you didn’t?

Conclusion

Remind young people that research has shown that exercise has a positive impact on brain function and encourage them to make exercise part of their regular routine.

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English, Spanish, Somali and Hmong so that families can learn about exercise and the brain at home.