Health advocacy principles and practice

Health Advocacy Lesson Guidelines for 2nd Grade

This is a paper that outlines a health advocacy lesson guideline for second grade and show how the community members, parents and students can participate in the campaign. It has sources.

Teaching elementary school students is a great responsibility which at times takes over the role of the parents as well as other loved ones. A teacher is not only a friend but a mentor, general physician and caretaker and therefore has to be aware of the health status and the mental well being of the student too. In the process of anticipating these health related problems, the teacher needs to learn before hand of the ongoing issues and attempt to advocate it in the class by integrating it into the lessons. Young children I think need their educators to be aware more than any level of learning as they are totally unaware, and their parents depend on the teachers to carry out the responsibility of care taker in their absence during school time. In the course of my teaching second graders for instance as a teacher I am to feed the children despite their revulsion. Students are very picky about their food and hence this motivates me to devise the following guidelines to advocate healthy nutrition for the young.

Health Issue: Healthy Nutrition

Content Area: Science

Grade Level: Second Grade

Health Advocacy Project Suggestions:

Class group activity integrated into Science standard.

Home assignment based on art and craft activities

Parents participation in workshop

Local community carnival

Classroom lesson guidelines

The first lesson would begin by asking students about the food they like. They would tell of their experience of why they like it. Vice versa they are encouraged to discuss foods they dislike. After having discussed this, I would begin by showing them the Food Pyramid and ask them to identify the food they like or do not like. The objective of this visual dimension is to establish the lesson that some food is good for their health and some are bad-even though it may taste good. Self-discovery is the strategy here to show that student's preferences may be harmful or beneficial. By explaining the importance and role of the food items on the food pyramid the teacher is to establish the positive relationship of food with healthy living.

The students are then grouped into a team of five members each with figures/pictures that they can place on the Pyramid so that the verbal communication becomes imprinted on the minds of the students. A "field" study can also be done by asking each student to bring one food item that they find on the pyramid. The basic objective is to demonstrate how science can be implemented in real life and the students can actually experience it. This is the reason the integration into the Science standard is ideal as they would have learnt some of the names of food items.

Apart from the classroom activity, the teacher can call for parents to attend a workshop in which they are to be taught of nutritious and healthy diet plan for their children. They are also to be trained in the various techniques to make food consumption interesting so that they can practice it at home with their children. The content of the workshop can be derived from the local dietician's office.