Home & Career Skills - Healthy Initiatives - Grades 6 & 7
Click here to view a Home & Careers photo gallery 
6th Grade – Jane Kribs class - Measuring food and preparing healthy meals
Sixth grade students at Stafford Middle School are learning to cook healthy meals from scratch, making low fat whole grain pizza dough and reduced sugar coffee cake. Through this practical exercise. students learn to follow a recipe and measure ingredients. They even get baking experience!
This unit leads to learning about portion control. After preparing a low fat/reduced sugar meal, the next step is learning what a healthy portion looks like. Mrs. Kribs uses common household objects, such as a tennis ball (vegetable portion) or a deck of cards (meat portion), to gauge a proper portion size.
Nutrition labels on pre-packaged foods contain important information, listing sugar and fat content, but can also be deceptive, especially when it comes to portion size. Students are surprised to learn that a small soda bottle contains two portions. The sugar content appears to be lower - per portion! Equally shocking was the revelation that common non-soda fruity beverages contain up to 40 grams of sugar!
Food safety is another important unit in the 6th Grade Home and Careers class. Students visit the USDA website to read about food safety and play “safe food” informational games and quizzes on topics like the proper way to store fresh meat and reading the “best by” date on packaging.
Kitchen safety prepares kids to deal carefully with sharp kitchen implements, the safe use of electrical appliances and avoiding injury from stoves and hot foods.
7th Grade – Cathy Whalen's class -
Seventh graders take the Milk Challenge
Mrs. Whelan’s students participate in a blind taste test, drinking various blends of milk (skim, 1%, 2% and whole milk) to see if they can tell the difference between high-fat whole milk and lower fat products. The objective is twofold: to get kids to drink more milk for the calcium content, and to guide them towards lower fat content in their milk. The big surprise was that most students could not tell high fat milk from non-fat skim milk.
In their nutrition unit, students read product labels to compare fat content, and learn about the connection between a high fat diet and heart disease. Mrs. Whelan also discusses the dietary causes of diabetes, which is becoming more prevalent among school-aged children. They look at the difference between healthier complex carbohydrates such as whole grains, and simple carbs like sugars, which are to be avoided.
As part of the nutrition unit called Carbs on Trial, students learn to prepare healthy meals – smoothies using fruits and low-fat yogurt, whole grain pasta, breakfast burritos and to eat vegetables every day.
Food safety and sanitation are an integral part of the cooking unit, and hand-washing ranks as the #1 safety precaution. Students learn to “clean as you go,” keeping hot foods hot and cold foods cold to avoid bacteria, and the proper way to handle meat.
With all these educational and practical activities, Stafford Middle School is leading the fight against nutrition-related diseases such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis and cancer.