Non-Fiction

“Fueling the Teen Machine” by Ellen Shanley and Colleen Thompson. Published in 2011 by Bull Publishing Company.

General Information:

“Fueling the Teen Machine” is the ultimate guide to navigating the world of nutrition. Used by both teens and parents, this book contains twelve detailed chapters from what your food is made of to managing a healthy weight to meal planning.

Specifically targeted to teens ages 12 to 18, middle school to high school. Thompson remarks that “During middle school, kids begin to change their eating habits… more involved in choosing their own food”. This is book is a great resource for children and adults because at the end of each chapter a list of key terms and definitions are provided for better understanding of the material. Furthermore, it is excellent for students who are not yet acquainted with nutrition or how to make healthy food choices.

This book can be integrated into a variety of subjects including math and science. Students can investigate food labels to determine the percentage of fat one would need depending on their daily calorie intake. Additionally, by the time the student is in middle school they should know the differences between proteins, fats and carbohydrates. In 8^th grade, students are beginning to learn the structure of cells and what is made up of cells. This will allow them to go in depth further about the specifics that make up the key components of food.

Core Integration:

Other than in a typical health class, the topic of nutrition, specifically food groups and nutrients, can be integrated in our core subjects. We can incorporate the idea of surveys and data entry from math by interviewing students and staff members within the school about their calorie intake, if they eat breakfast, what food source do you eat the most (carbs, fats, proteins) etc. Students can then express their results in the form of written pieces or visual graphs/tables. (Common Core Standards in math and language arts)

Restated from above, middle school students should be able to determine the differences between proteins, fats and carbohydrates. In 8^th grade, students are beginning to learn the structure of cells and what is made up of cells. This will allow them to go in depth further about the specifics that make up the key components of food; proteins, fats and carbohydrates.

Standards:

NHES

1.8.1 Classify the amount of food from each food group that a person needs each day.

• HBO 1: Eat the appropriate number of servings from each food group everyday
• HBO 2: Eat a variety of foods within each good group everyday

NGSS

1. LS1.A: 1. Conduct an investigation to provide evidence that living things are made of cells; either one cell or many different numbers and types of cells

CCSS

ELA-Literacy.RST.6-8.7: Integrate quantitative or technical information expressed in words in a text with a version of that information expressed visually (e.g., in a flowchart, diagram, model, graph, or table).

8.SP.A.4: Understand that patterns of association can also be seen in bivariate categorical data by displaying frequencies and relative frequencies in a two-way table. Construct and interpret a two-way table summarizing data on two categorical variables collected from the same subjects. Use relative frequencies calculated for rows or columns to describe possible association between the two variables. For example, collect data from students in your class on whether or not they have a curfew on school nights and whether or not they have assigned chores at home. Is there evidence that those who have a curfew also tend to have chores?