idea for any highschool teachers who are interested

I have really enjoyed watching the graph of my average hours/day on my exercise log change with time. It is amazing how inspiring wanting to move the data point up can be. It is also been fun doing the data entry from my old exercise log, which was done with pen and paper, into the spreadsheet and watching the graph over time. One can *easily* tell at what point in the history of my exercise I set up the graph showing the average hours/day, because the line takes a *very* sharp bend up and stays much higher from then on.

Seeing this post by hrj and how her graph changed when she started tracking her food, and remembering how I started losing weight when I started tracking my food, even though my goal was just to see how "balanced" was my diet caused me to wake up inspired with an idea for a year-long high school inter-disciplinary project. However, I don't teach at high school, so I thought I'd share the idea here, on the off chance that anyone else, who can use the idea, might be interested.

Have the kids start the year writing an essay for English or some other social-science class about their current self image/health/fitness status. Have them start a spreadsheet to track what they are currently eating each day and what they are currently doing in the way of physical activity. For the first month or two they are encouraged not to change anything, but just make a record of *everything* they eat, and then they need to calculate the % how much is protein, how much fruit, etc for all of the food-groups. In the mean time study what happens to food when it is eaten, how digested, how converted to the various purposes the body needs. What different types of food become within the body, and how much/little of each is needed and why. Include mention of trace elements and minerals too. The next assignment is for each of them to decide what they think the ideal balance between the various food groups should be based on their studies, and then try to change their own intake till they match that proportion of each sort of food. Write an essay for the non-science class about how they feel about their self image/health/fitness now that the project has been going half a year and they are adjusting their intake with specific goal in mind. Then check to see if they need to revise goal--does the balance they've selected seem to work? How are energy levels, etc.? Repeat with year end report on how their diet has changed (or not changed) over the time tracked, noting changes in health/fitness/energy/self image etc. Make the focus on finding the right combinations of foods for optimum health and were the goals achieved and how the science ties in with the psychology of it all.

idea for any highschool teachers who are interested

I have really enjoyed watching the graph of my average hours/day on my exercise log change with time. It is amazing how inspiring wanting to move the data point up can be. It is also been fun doing the data entry from my old exercise log, which was done with pen and paper, into the spreadsheet and watching the graph over time. One can *easily* tell at what point in the history of my exercise I set up the graph showing the average hours/day, because the line takes a *very* sharp bend up and stays much higher from then on.

Seeing this post by hrj and how her graph changed when she started tracking her food, and remembering how I started losing weight when I started tracking my food, even though my goal was just to see how "balanced" was my diet caused me to wake up inspired with an idea for a year-long high school inter-disciplinary project. However, I don't teach at high school, so I thought I'd share the idea here, on the off chance that anyone else, who can use the idea, might be interested.

Have the kids start the year writing an essay for English or some other social-science class about their current self image/health/fitness status. Have them start a spreadsheet to track what they are currently eating each day and what they are currently doing in the way of physical activity. For the first month or two they are encouraged not to change anything, but just make a record of *everything* they eat, and then they need to calculate the % how much is protein, how much fruit, etc for all of the food-groups. In the mean time study what happens to food when it is eaten, how digested, how converted to the various purposes the body needs. What different types of food become within the body, and how much/little of each is needed and why. Include mention of trace elements and minerals too. The next assignment is for each of them to decide what they think the ideal balance between the various food groups should be based on their studies, and then try to change their own intake till they match that proportion of each sort of food. Write an essay for the non-science class about how they feel about their self image/health/fitness now that the project has been going half a year and they are adjusting their intake with specific goal in mind. Then check to see if they need to revise goal--does the balance they've selected seem to work? How are energy levels, etc.? Repeat with year end report on how their diet has changed (or not changed) over the time tracked, noting changes in health/fitness/energy/self image etc. Make the focus on finding the right combinations of foods for optimum health and were the goals achieved and how the science ties in with the psychology of it all.

Today's task was fun, but...

I spent the day doing( more calculations )

so, while I am getting numbers, they aren't doing what we'd hoped they'd do when I started.

As a result, here it is almost 23:00, and while I've done 8.5 hours of uni work today, the thesis is only 204 words longer than it was yesterday, because while I was able to write some stuff after the first step of the calculations, I don't really have the rest of the steps together enough to do any writing from them yet. Sigh.

But now I *must* walk away from the computer, my eyes hurt from that many hours staring at the screen. Yes, I should look away regularly, but, really, it didn't *seem* that long while I was working!

Today's task was fun, but...

I spent the day doing( more calculations )

so, while I am getting numbers, they aren't doing what we'd hoped they'd do when I started.

As a result, here it is almost 23:00, and while I've done 8.5 hours of uni work today, the thesis is only 204 words longer than it was yesterday, because while I was able to write some stuff after the first step of the calculations, I don't really have the rest of the steps together enough to do any writing from them yet. Sigh.

But now I *must* walk away from the computer, my eyes hurt from that many hours staring at the screen. Yes, I should look away regularly, but, really, it didn't *seem* that long while I was working!