eTwinning Project idea: We Are what We Eat (WAwWE)

This is a project that pretends to analyze mathematically the diet of the students and improve it taking into account the quantity of calories one needs to eat, the nutritional value of the food one eats as well as the ecological footprint of this food. The principal aim is to raise awareness of the importance of having a healthy life (by studying their diet, link to the environment, and incorporating healthy-life habits in their day-to-day basis)

General Data:

Nombre:  We Are what We Eat
Students: 3º ESO (14-15 years old. One class, 30 students distributed in 6 groups of 5)
Subjects involved: Maths, Biology, Physical Education (PE), IT, English and culture aspects (as we are going to learn about the gastronomy of different countries) that we will work cross-curriculum.
Timing: 6 months


Objectives:

• Connecting mathematical content in the curriculum and common aspects of day-to-day life, especially related to diet, nutrition and cuisine. Developing pupils' ability to abstract thinking, to transfer mathematical knowledge to everyday life and vice-versa.

• Raising awareness of healthy life habits, specially through the diet and physical exercise as well as raising awareness of environmental issues that affects our food such as use of pesticides, genetically modified organism (GMO) or use of antibiotics or hormons in animals and intensive farming among others.

• Developing competencies among pupils: mathematical, linguistic, social and civic, artistic, digital, initiative competencies as well as learning to learn competence.

• Knowing and understanding our partners’ cultural and historical background by studying the local customs and traditions (presentation phase). Getting aware of the similarities and differences between us, developing tolerance and cooperation.

• Facilitating communication in a foreign language. Using English as a platform to access and construct knowledge related to different subjects and situations as well as a collaboration tool to communicate information, ideas, feelings.

• Improving results in the class and increasing motivation, interest and effort among the participant pupils.

• Promoting team work and developing multiple intelligences.

• Using ICT as a strategy for searching information, solving tasks, using specific programs, sharing and disseminating results and as a communication tool for both teachers and pupils.

•  Providing both pupils and teachers with diversified techniques in order to promote critical spirit.

 All these general objectives are linked to the 3º ESO subject-specific objectives involved in the project (for a more specific mapping of subjects objectives with the project, we refer to the Squeme of Work (SoW) of each subject, it would be far too long to write it here). But as a summary, it would go as follows:

• Stats in Maths

• Use of a text processor to present a report, a spreadsheet for calculations and graphs, communications tools (forums, skype, social networks) and the creation of a final product using ICT (movies, slideshows, quizzes, etc) in IT.

• Nutritition and ecology in Biology.

• Healthy-life habits, nutrition and sports in PE.

• Communication skills through all the subjects but specifically in English (and French if possible)

• Culture and gastronomy cross-curriculum (and probably History)

Working process:

• Looking for partners in other countries, presentations using eTwinning Space, creation of working groups (students) and matching groups from different countries to start collaborative work.

• Presentation of the project and activities (some examples):

• Task 1 (week 1): Calculate the average amount of calories one should eat (base in age, gender, height and weight and physical activity). This is done in PE previous explanations of how the body works, what methabolism is, calculus of basal methabolism and using a formula, calculate the recommendable amount of calories each person should eat (individual work)

• Task 2 (week 1): Using a spreadsheet input the formula and check the previous result.

• Task 3 (week 2): Take a weekly register of your actual diet (we give them a table where they have to write what they eat for breakfast, morning break, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner)

• Task 4 (week 3): Using internet, look for a calories converter calculator to change food into calories, calculate the actual daily calories input and calculate the average.

• Task 5 (week 3): Compare the actual amount of calories one eats with tha advisable amount of calories calculated in task 1. Should you modify your diet? Debate

• Task 6 (weeks 4 and 5): Calculate your BMI (Body Mass Index). Using a spreadsheet we record the height and the weight of all students (anonymously) and using formulas we calculate the BMI of each of them. Also, we calculate the average height, weight and BMI for the class. We place eac student into the different categories (ideal weight should lose weight, should put on weight, etc). Make group grahs and write conclusions.

• Task 7 (weeks 6 to 9): Individual analysis.: Do I eat too much/enough? Am I the correct weight for my height? Do I eat nourishing food? Do I know the ingredients of the food I eat? Do I know where my food come from?

• Task 8 (weeks 10 and 11): Analysing a typical dish from my partner group (groups from different countries)

• Task 9 (weeks 12 to 15): Modifying mi diet. Taking into account the previous study, each student should modify his/her diet taking acount: amount of calories, healthy/bio food, nourishing component, balanced diet (all studied and debated in Biology and PE through the project)

• Task 10 (weeks 15 to 18): Knowledge sharing. Group work. They should create a model diet for a hipotetical person taking into account all learnt through the project.

• Task 11 (week 19):  Collaborative breakfast. The feast ef eating! We'll organise an open breakfast with hand made products showing healthy ways of eating. Yummy!!

• General Task (through the project): they should comment the result of each task with their partner groups (the groups from different countries we talked before) so they can share questions, give feedback, help each other, etc.

• Task 12 (weeks 20 to 24): Produce a digital product with the conclusions (movie, presentation, slideshare, blog, etc.)

 Final results
Apart from the final product of the students, we are aiming to spread out the knowledge through the school and families, making people aware of how they eat and how the can eat better simply to feel well and avoid deseases. We can organise a 'healthy breakfast' once a term, we can broadcast the final products of our students on the hall TV or the school website, share the experience and these digital products on eTwining live and eTwinning space and social networks. We can also do a follow-up in the following years to know if these students have incorporated the kwnoledge adquired in the project to their lifes, make interviews about how they eat, how they feel, etc. We can organise gastronomical trips to eco-markets or farms, etc.
On the other hand we'll have to evaluate the project, it will be done through the process (by making interviews, feedback, etc) and at the end of the process. A co-evaluation will be done to know how the group worked together, self-evaluation as well as external evaluation of the whole project and its results.

Just to give you a taste of something we will deal with (and to make you think), here you go this short video:
The sweet potato project. The importance of organic food