Grow your own
by Anna Menzel | Apr 09, 2010
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Summary:
Elementary students and middle school students could start the process of healthy eating and exercise through growing their own fresh fruits and vegetables. By installing green houses into school communities they would be able to grow these products and even substitute them into their school lunches. They would be taught the nutritional value of these and other foods therefore making healthy choices when it comes to school, home, fast food, and other venues. By implementing a fun and easy way to get active it will provide support for those students who do not have the ability or time to go to a play ground or go for a walk, to get the exercise they need. As recess periods are being cut shorter to provide for more math and English classes our schools need to realize what they are now depriving their students of. This method could be used in science classrooms to enhance the curriculum already in place. By targeting the children that especially need the extra help we could have a buddy system from one of the high schools to help this child achieve their fitness goals. Teamwork is essential from the schools, families, and buddy if we are to get our children healthy. Each week the buddy would take the child for a walk or go play at a park, giving the child valuable time to get exercise. Each week we could measure the student’s progress through weigh-ins and checkups. If this continues to be a successful program it could be installed in other schools across the state.
First Name
Anna
Last Name
Menzel
Country
United States, MN
City
About You
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Students for the Future
Organization Website
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=135202097066&ref=ts
Organization Phone
Organization Address
Your idea
Name your idea
Grow your own
Describe your idea
Elementary students and middle school students could start the process of healthy eating and exercise through growing their own fresh fruits and vegetables. By installing green houses into school communities they would be able to grow these products and even substitute them into their school lunches. They would be taught the nutritional value of these and other foods therefore making healthy choices when it comes to school, home, fast food, and other venues. By implementing a fun and easy way to get active it will provide support for those students who do not have the ability or time to go to a play ground or go for a walk, to get the exercise they need. As recess periods are being cut shorter to provide for more math and English classes our schools need to realize what they are now depriving their students of. This method could be used in science classrooms to enhance the curriculum already in place. By targeting the children that especially need the extra help we could have a buddy system from one of the high schools to help this child achieve their fitness goals. Teamwork is essential from the schools, families, and buddy if we are to get our children healthy. Each week the buddy would take the child for a walk or go play at a park, giving the child valuable time to get exercise. Each week we could measure the student’s progress through weigh-ins and checkups. If this continues to be a successful program it could be installed in other schools across the state.
How do you define your "community"?
Our community is the school communities in which students spend fifty or more percent of their time during the school year. This is where children are the most pliable, able to be easily shapped and molded into healthy individuals. By starting at early ages we are able to plant the seeds of healthy living as they grow older and advance into their high school, college, and adult life.
Tell us how you think the issue of obesity is affecting your community
Over the past ten to twelve years that our organization has grown up we have seen an ever prevalent threat to the health of the students. By looking around the schools we are in every day it is easy to see what a state-wide and national epidemic obesity has become. Many of us have younger siblings and upon going into their classrooms or schools we see the change ever increasing. There needs to start a change within our school systems because without it the problem is going to keep exploding as those kids learn that the eating and exercise habits they are developing are okay. Therefore let us put a stop to this epidemic right now; let us bind together as a school community, city, and state to be the first to stop the ensuing problems.
Why should your idea be selected?
Our idea should be selected because it incorporates all three aspects to a healthy life style in an unique way that will benefit the children in our schools. By combining healthy eating and learning nutritional information, with exercise and a support system for the children that need the most help this is an infallible system. The reason we need the 15,000 is to help defray some of the costs of green houses, and monitoring the progress of these students. Please care for the children, because they are the next generation, and yet they may be the first generation to not live past the life expectancy of their parents. Help us to stop this devastating trend; ultimately it will hurt us as a state and nation with all the preventable health effects that will come to pass when these children grow up. It is hard to change a culture set in its fast paced ways of fast food, television, and work, but it must be done. We need to target the children who are the ones most likely to benefit from the strategies.
 | Anna Menzel updated this Competition Entry. - 1139 days ago |
 | Anna Menzel submitted this idea. - 1139 days ago |
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