Title:
A School That Teaches Children to Eat Better
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
About one-fifth of Americans age six to nineteen are
considered overweight. To reduce that number, some
schools are teaching children to make better food
choices. The EW Stokes Public Charter School in
Washington has started to include food topics in its
third-grade math and English programs. The school
formed a partnership with Seedling Projects, an
environmental group in San Francisco,
California.Peter Nalli is a curriculum director for
a program called Farm to Desk. He says they are
doing this in part to address the issue of childhood
obesity. He says: "One of the main components of our
program is our belief that if kids are exposed to
positive and healthy messaging about food throughout
the instructional day, that has the most potential
to impact long-term change."Teacher Hannah Chen
recently used food examples to teach eight and nine
year olds in a math class how to make combinations.
For example, they figured out the different
combinations that could be made with a pizza and two
toppings. School chef Makeisha Daye says the school
buys most of its food from local farms. But the
school has a garden for the students to grow some of
the vegetables themselves. "The children, they love
it," she says.Teacher Hannah Chen agrees. She says:
"We have a salad bar at the school, and now the kids
love the salad bar. They love the fruits and
vegetables. So I think it is making a big difference
in their lives." She says the third graders have
also learned to read the sugar and fat content
listed on food packages. She says the EW Stokes
Public Charter School in Washington plans to expand
the Farm to Desk program to other grades next
year.Charter schools get public money but do not
have to follow the same rules as traditional public
schools. Many charter schools have specialized areas
of study -- like Environmental Charter High School
near Los Angeles. Students learn the importance of
protecting the environment. Rigo Estrada says he
used to be the kind of person who threw trash on the
street. But now he has done things like clean up
beaches and teach elementary school students about
the importance of water conservation. He says he now
knows that going green "actually is a really serious
topic."Students learn from teachers and outside
experts, like the owner of an environmentally
friendly business. They also learn how to prepare a
business plan that they can use to help pay for
college. For VOA Special English, I'm Alex
Villarreal.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
