Students can discover the important nutrients milk contains while using their creativity to make their favorite flavor of customized milk.

Connecting annuals, biennials, and perennials to the foods we eat helps students understand the nutrients those foods provide us and why the plants contain those nutrients. The focus will be on how plants store food and why.

Students will become familiar with the foods they eat and healthy eating habits while learning about the MyPlate food categories.

Students will match vegetable seeds with the vegetable and learn a basic food fact about each then participate in a relay.

Students will research foods made from plant families (with support as needed), identify family members and common nutrients and create artwork of one family group or a food made from that family.

Students will be introduced to artists and their work in order to prepare them to create their own garden art or still life portraits. Appreciating the beauty of still life art and garden produce will increase interest in foods grown in the garden. Students will use that appreciation to develop promotional art to be displayed in the school to encourage fellow students to eat more fruits and vegetables.

Student will collect personal meal consumption data, align those foods to the food guide food groups, and cross reference that information with the MyPlate to compare personal eating habits and to recommended guidelines. Students also will use that information to create their own food web.

Using the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “Nutrient Database,” the students will compete to predict which vegetables or fruits grown in the school garden contain the highest levels of specific nutrients, graph the results and research the value of those nutrients to their growth and health.

Students will evaluate their meal selections, determine the caloric content and evaluate eating and exercise options to maintain a healthy weight.

USDA’s “Nutrient Database” will be the focus of research to identify which foods contain necessary nutrients and which foods grown in the garden are most nutrient dense or will meet specific nutritional needs.