Where, Oh Where has Family and Consumer Sciences Gone?
Arkansas consistently ranks as one of the most food insecure states in the nation, with one out of every four children unsure of where they will get their next meal. Food insecure children are more likely to struggle academically and have worse health outcomes. One out of three Arkansas children are classified as obese, putting them at greater risk for chronic diseases and increased healthcare costs. Many Arkansans simultaneously struggle with both food insecurity and obesity due to not having equitable access to healthful, affordable foods.
Eating healthfully on a budget is possible if families have the knowledge and skills to shop for and prepare affordable, delicious, and healthful meals at home, yet Family and Consumer Sciences is not always offered in schools. It is thus essential that we integrate these basic life skills across subjects to help our students live healthful, fruitful lives. This $10 Challenge universal lesson plan is adapted from Share Our Strength’s Cooking Matters program and supported by the Blue & You Foundation for a Healthier Arkansas in partnership with Economics Arkansas. The focus of the lesson is to integrate healthful eating, meal planning, and comparing food labels and unit prices.
Lesson Plan
The lesson is split into two parts. The first part is the “Pop-up Tour” which reviews how we can use MyPlate, Nutrition Facts labels, and unit prices to guide our choices at the grocery store. The second part is the $10 Challenge activity where students will synthesize the information learned in the Pop-Up Tour to plan a healthful meal for 4 for under $10. While the lesson is written in two parts, instructors may wish to break up the lesson further depending on the amount of available time, and how in-depth they want to go with the subject materials.
In its entirety, the lesson plan is written very generally without focusing too much in any particular subject area. Depending on your subject and classroom level, facilitators may wish to modify the lesson to meet their needs. We have even included various implementation ideas connected to individual subjects within the lesson. There are many ways to cater the activities to your students -- it can be a contest, whoever can get the most food for the least amount of money, or the facilitator can bring in copies of weekly ads from local grocery stores and encourage students to use those in their meal plan.
Wrapping Up:
Above all, our goal throughout the lesson is to help students develop a positive relationship with the food they eat. People have strong connections to food through traditions, culture, memories, and emotions. As such, it is important to be sensitive when talking about food with students of all ages. We hope to inspire the confidence to be bold in the kitchen, try new things, and not be afraid to make mistakes.
Contact Nutrition Director Samantha Stadter at sstadter@arhungeralliance.org or 501-399-9999 to learn more!
