In Wellness and Fitness, I have grown in my ability to influence/encourage people how to make healthier life choices/improve their lifestyle to be healthier. I learned what nutrients are needed in our body and why they are so important to continue for our bodies to function properly. I learned that our bodies need protein (which are building blocks that we need because our bodies don’t store protein, so we need it to be replaced by consuming outside sources: beans, chicken, or nuts), Carbohydrates (simple/complex sugars that are used to give us energy and help keep everything going in our bodies), and Lipids (which are fats—if our body goes through all our carbohydrates, our bodies can start going through the lipids. We need to consume food that lowers LDL and increases HDL in our bodies.) We learned what diseases can be caused if we eat too many of non-whole wheat bread or have too much sugars and why that it. I also learned how to modify a meal to make it healthier and explain why it is healthier and what diseases I am reducing the risk of. For example: If we have a hamburger (with 6oz. of beef) with a bun that had a teaspoon of mayo and iceberg lettuce, we can change the amount of meat to 4oz., and change the bun to a whole bun— we would do this because whole wheat grains have more finer than refined grains and because it has more fiber in it, it is able to prevent the absorption of LDL into our arteries so they don’t get clogged. This prevents the risk of Heart Disease because the buildup of LDL can clog our arteries. Fiber also slows down the absorption of sugar so we don’t get that high spike in blood glucose levels. This prevents the risk of Type 2 Diabetes. We would take away the mayo which reduces LDL cholesterol and saturated fats. This prevents the risk of Heart Disease because the buildup of LDL and saturated fats can clog our arteries. We would also replace the iceberg lettuce with dark-leafy green leaves because dark-leafy green leaves provide more minerals and vitamins to help our body function. I can take this knowledge and put it in a fun activity to do with students (making cute snacks that are healthy) and inform them why this is healthy and what diseases risks are lowered. This will encourage the students to eat healthier because they will know what to make and make other things that have these nutrients that they need.  In addition to this information that I learned in one of our units about marijuana and other drugs and how they affect our physical, mental/emotional (depression, anxiety, cannot think/make decisions), and social (loses friends, money, and/or family) health. I learned how to use this information to encourage students to not use marijuana because of its long-term (brain deterioration, lung cancer, and addiction) and short-tern effects (red eyes and depression/mood swings).

 

 One learning endeavor (project/assignment) that supports my growth is the Healthy Living event. The purpose of this project/assignment was to learn about healthy living and healthy eating, what our body needs in order to function, why we need those nutrients, what is happening to those nutrients in our body (digestion), and what eating habits contribute to diseases (Type 2 diabetes and Heart Disease). In this project, we created an event that encourages others to eat healthier/ exercise. In order to complete this project successfully, first we were dividing into groups of students that share the same Biology and Wellness class. (Groups contain 2-3 students). Each individual in each group brainstormed an ideas for an event to host to a certain audience that is relevant and can be backed up (reasoning) by data we collected from daily food and exercise diaries that 10th graders (to represent the high school students)  and 8th graders (to represent the middle school students) filled out earlier this quarter. We, then, as a group shared our ideas, compromised, and chose an event. After we chose that event, we created a PowerPoint based on what our event was (more information about the proposal presentation in next paragraph)     If our event was approved due to inaccurate content or insufficient evidence to justify our event, we were to revise our proposal to meet the standards and will meet the project requirements in an alternative way. I do not know more specifically about what we had to do if our event was not approved because our (my group members and I) event was approved. Our event took place at 11:45 in the morning on Tuesday, December 16, 2014. We created a grocery list, a script, and practice that script (how we were going to set up, and what we were going to say) We created all those things and were ready by that Monday. We had to wash the fruit, get all the tables set and ready to begin when the participants (6th graders) arrived. We followed the script and interacted with our audience to make eating healthy seem fun (because it is). After we were finished with our event, we cleaned up and passed out recipes for the food that we created with them to take home. At the end of the project/assignment, we created this interactive and successful event created to encourage and inform the 6th graders at the Dayton Regional STEM School to eat healthier.

 

 One artifact or piece of evidence from this project/assignment is our group’s proposal presentation (PowerPoint slide 4: Event) that has eight slides containing our event title, group members names, the target audience, what the needs are of that audience (not enough whole wheat grains, vegetables, or fruit), justification of their needs (shown in data), the consequences if their needs are not met (what diseases can be caused), our event idea, how our event address the barriers that led to the need, the budget for the event (the maximum was $15), and the final request to host this event. We were to present all this information in front of our classmates and our Wellness and Biology teacher. This was to show that we wanted our event to be approved and that this event will be successful and help encourage the students to eat healthier. In this his artifact, we can see that we incorporated what diseases can be caused (consequences) if our target audience do not meet their needs to be healthier (If they don’t get the nutrients that they are lacking) and how the snacks that we made (whole wheat bread bears and yogurt fruit cups) are healthier than just having white bread and ice cream with strawberry syrup cup. We modified the snack to make it healthier, as I said I learned to do in Wellness. This artifacts also says what diseases can be caused if the needs are not met, and what and why the students/audience need these nutrients (whole wheat and vitamin D) that they are not getting. Such as explaining that wheat has that fiber in it that the audience are not consuming daily and that it’s important to have that fiber so that it can prevent LDL from being absorbed and it slows down the abortion of sugar, so we don’t get a spike in blood glucose levels and this helps reduce the risk of Type 2 Diabetes and Heart disease and how Vitamin D have lower cholesterol levels. By creating a PowerPoint and creating an event, it shows how to create an engaging activity to encourage a group to eat healthier, by making cute, visual appealing, healthy snacks. If the activity/event was not engaging or even fun, not many student would want to eat healthy. There would be no motivation, but by offering and showing these other option of how to eat healthy in a fun way, my group and I were able to influence and encourage students to eat healthy.

 

Another learning endeavor that shows how I learned in encouraging others to make healthier life choices is the Drug Prevention Unit. In this unit, we learned what drugs there are that some people use and how each drug has ways of affecting our physical, social, and emotional/mental health.  In this unit, we did a project where we were to create a drug PSA (poster or video) to encourage teens/ a certain audience to not partake of a certain drug (alcohol, marijuana, or tobacco) In order to succeed at completing this project, we first were divided into groups based on whether we wanted to do a poster PSA or video PSA. My group and I, researched certain drugs that we learned were most common used amongst teens and picked marijuana to do our PSA about. After many work days of working on the PSA, involving the statistic that people who began smoking marijuana heavily in their teens lost an average of 8 points of their IQ between ages 13-38, a slogan, and a powerful/meaningful photo that is related to preventing the use of that drug, we finished. This project is tied back to my growth which is that I learned how to influence/encourage others to make healthier life choices because doing drugs in unhealthy and unfortunately many teens in the United States use them and by creating a powerful and visually appealing poster that makes people walk up to it curiously and away from it changed and wanting to quit using that drug, it could very well help people really want to quit using that drug because they will be informed of what it could do to them. If the poster was not powerful or creative, a person won’t have a motivation to stop using the drug because it won’t affect them in a way that will make them stop. By doing this project, I now know what I should include, how to create a powerful image (either if it’s about how that drug makes it difficult to graduate and you can lose valuable things: family, money, or friends) to influence people to not smoke marijuana and show them the affects/consequences of not living healthy.