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Educational Resources

  • Teacher Workshops

    Grade: K-8
    Resource: Workshops for teachers

  • Parent Workshops

    Grade: K-8
    Resource: Workshops for parents

  • Curricula/Literature

    Grade: 4-6
    Resource: Student Curriculum: Food production; From farm to store; celebrating food; Food and health - nourishing the body; Handling food-related waste & pollution

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Choice, Control and Change: An Inquiry-Based Science Education Program for Children Overweight

Grant Code: R25RR020412

Funding Years: 09/01/2004 - 08/31/2009

Institution: Columbia University Teachers College

Department: Department of Biological Sciences

Address:
525 W 120th Street, Box 137
New York, NY, 10027

PI:
CONTENTO, ISOBEL,
Phone: (212) 678-3949
Fax: (212) 678-8259
Email: contento@tc.edu

OTHER CONTACT:
CALABRESE-BARTON, ANGELA,
Phone:
Fax:
Email: acb@msu.edu

OTHER CONTACT:
KOCH, PAMELA A.,
Phone:
Fax:
Email: pkoch@tc.edu

URL: http://www.tc.edu/life
Audience

Middle school students, their teachers, and their families

Subjects Addressed

Human biology, chronic disease etiology and prevention, nutrition, and health science careers

Project Description

1) Develop, implement, evaluate and disseminate a new inquiry-based science education middle school module, Choice, Control and Change (C3). The C3 teacher curriculum guide consists of 19 innovative, standards-based lessons. The lessons provide students a clear, conceptual understanding of the complex roles of biology and the 21st century food system in influencing personal behavior, health, and body size to develop science agency and competence in navigating today-s complex food system and sedentary environment to move toward healthful eating and physical activity practices. At the same time students learn about health sciences and health science careers. 2) Foster and facilitate collaborations between working scientists in the areas of obesity and chronic disease, and researchers in behavioral nutrition and science education. The classes who receive C3 go on fieldtrips to the Exercise Physiology Lab at Teachers College and the Body Composition Lab at St. Luke-s/Roosevelt Hospital Center. They also have a panel of health professionals from the General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) at Rockefeller University come to their school.

Resources for Sharing

C3 teachers- manual, student materials and evaluation instruments - Complete lesson plans and students reading and activity sheets that go with the lessons and evaluation surveys we use to determine student effectiveness.

Dissemination Strategies

1) Support five implementation centers to reach 120 teachers and 2500 students. The 2007-08 school year is our first dissemination year. We are continuing with schools that were part of our evaluation in New York City, working in Lansing and Jackson Michigan and in Hayward California. In the 2008-09 school year we will work in Philadelphia and St. Louis. To institutionalize C3 at these places we will support two to three lead teachers who can facilitate the continuation of C3 after the implementation coordinator. 2) Publishing the curriculum. National Gardening Association is publishing our previous SEPA modules, Growing Food, Farm to Table & Beyond, and Food & Health currently. It will publish C3 in 2009.

Abstract

Overweight has doubled in US children in the past two decades with 25% of 6 to 19-year olds estimated to be overweight or "at risk for overweight." Urban minority children are at even higher risk. The results from our comprehensive evaluation of our SEPA funded Phase I & II (1997-2004) project, Linking Food and the environment (LIFE) show that children are very interested in science when it involves an inquiry-based approach and uses content that is personally meaningful, such as food. The specific objectives of this project are to develop, evaluate and disseminate a curriculum, Choice, Control and Change (or C3), that would be an extension into middle school, grade 6 or 7, of LIFE, which is for grades 4-5. More specifically, C3 will (a) provide students clear, conceptual understandings of the complex roles of biology and the 21st century food system in influencing personal behavior, health, and body size; (b) build skills and attitudes that lead to competence or personal control in navigating today's complex food system and sedentary environment; (c) focus on improving healthful eating and physical activity practices as a means to overweight prevention; and (d) increase interest in the health sciences and health science careers. C3 will also provide children the opportunity to meet science and health education standards. After development and formative evaluation in year 1, C3 will summatively be evaluated in year 2 in a pretest-posttest intervention, control group design involving 4 New York City middle schools randomly assigned to condition within pairs, with 20 C3 classes and 20 comparison classes (about 1000 students total). The 20 classes in control schools will receive the curriculum in year 3. Evaluation results will be used to revise the program. Dissemination in years 4 and 5 will involve four national sites in addition to New York, with 120 classes (3600 students) being fully funded to receive C3. A leader teacher model will be used to institutionlize C3 to help assure that schools continue to implement C3 after SEPA funding.

Keywords

curriculum, obesity, food systems, life science, inquiry-based science, middle school students, teachers, families, quantitative and qualitative evaluation, national dissemination centers

Other projects from the same PI:
View the Poster as presented at the 2005
SEPA Program Director's Conference

View the Poster as presented at the 2006
SEPA Program Director's Conference

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