Kelli Anderson

Tamar Karabian

Emily Marrs

FND 370

Lesson Plan Project

Lesson Plan

“Be Sugar Savvy!”

I. Target audience: School children ages 8-9

II. Behavioral Objective: To be able to identify amount of sugar in commonly consumed

drinks and amount of “hidden” sugar in certain commonly consumed foods.

III. Time allotted: 45 minutes

IV. Pre-assessment: Question children about how much sugar they think they consume a day

and ask if they know why consuming too much sugar is detrimental to health.

V. Content and sequence:

a. Describe what sugar is, explain how much sugar children should consume each

day.

b. Why is excess sugar detrimental to health?

c. Complete two learning activities.

d. Further discuss foods that contain sugar, including obvious and not so obvious

culprits.

e. Options to reduce consumption of added sugars.

f. Questions from children.

VI. Learning activities: Two activities to teach children about amount of sugar in common

foods and beverages. Children will calculate, with help, amount of sugar in certain

beverages and use sugar cubes to serve as a visual and enhance understanding. Children

will then play a matching game that will indicate how much sugar is present in

commonly consumed foods and sauces to teach them that sugar can be found in

unsuspected places. These fun activities are designed to educate while also keeping

children of this age engaged in the lesson at hand.

VII. Materials: Images of foods and food labels, sugar cubes, M&Ms, clear plastic cups to

hold sugar cubes and M&Ms, handout teaching about nutrition labels, sugar matching

activity sheets #1 and #2, cards with images of beverages discussed during the lesson to

be used for learning activity #2 and the evaluation.

VIII. Evaluation: Sugar relay: Children will be given cards containing images of beverages

discussed during the lesson and instructed to arrange them in order of least to most added

sugar. Nutrition labels will not be provided, as the goal is to see if children have gained a

general sense of what contains more sugar. Incorrect answers will be corrected, and this

will lead to a final discussion with children at the end of the lesson.

Pre-assessment

The pre-assessment will consist of a discussion and therefore does not require materials.

Materials will be introduced during the learning activities and used for the evaluation.

Learning Activity #1

Description:

Students will be broken up into three groups. Each group will be given a sheet labeled sugar

matching activity #1 as well as three randomly labeled cups with sugar cubes corresponding to

the amount of sugar in each food item. Each cup will also list how many cubes of sugar it

contains. The instructor will retain the key that details which food corresponds to which cup.

Each activity sheet #1 pictures three food items commonly consumed by children. Students will

be instructed to guess which cup of sugar cubes corresponds with which food item. Next, each

group will receive a handout that explains how to read a nutrition fact sheet and be instructed on

how to look at a food label to determine the grams of sugar in one serving size of each item.1

Then, each group will be given a sheet labeled sugar matching activity #2. This sheet will display

the same food items as activity sheet #1, but the food labels will also be included. Students will

be asked to use the labels to calculate the number of sugar cubes contained in one serving of each

food. We will clarify that each sugar cube contains two grams of sugar, so the children should

divide the amount of sugar in one serving by two to determine how many sugar cubes their food

item contains per serving. Half cubes will be provided for odd numbers and assistance will be

provided as needed. After students have finalized their decisions and any necessary corrections

are made, we will compare their guesses in the first part of this activity to their educated

responses in the second part. We will then initiate a discussion about sugar in general. Children

will be informed that sugar is a sweet substance made from sugarcane, and that if they are 6-11

years old they should not consume more than 40 grams of sugar each day.2 Finally, we will

compare the recommended amount to how much sugar they would have consumed if they ate

only one serving of any of these foods, as well as if eating only one serving is realistic.

Materials:

Matching activity sheets #1 and #2 and cups filled with sugar cubes.

Group 1

Sugar matching activity #1

Group 1

Sugar matching activity #2

Group 2

Sugar matching activity #1

Group 2

Sugar matching activity #2

Group 3

Sugar matching activity #1

Group 3

Sugar matching activity #2

Learning Activity #2

Drinking your sugar!

Description:

Now that we’ve learned all about sugar and have seen how much sugar is in everyday foods, let’s

take a look at how much sugar we could be drinking.

The students will be split up into four groups to play a matching game. Each group will receive 1

empty cup (to symbolize amount of sugar in water), 2 cups filled with different amounts of

M&Ms labeled to indicate the number that each cup contains, and three cards (seen below). Each

card will illustrate a different beverage. Each group will receive water as one of their drinks to

serve as a comparison and illustrate that water is the best option as it is naturally sugar free, and

two other beverages. We will explain that the number of M&Ms in each cup represents the same

amount of sugar that they would be consuming if they drank the corresponding beverage.

Students will then be asked to match each cups of M&Ms to one of the cards.

Group 1: Gatorade (29 M&Ms), Pepsi (57 M&Ms), Water

Group 2: Vitamin Water (26 M&Ms), Lemonade (54 M&Ms), Water

Group 3: Kool-aid (53 M&Ms), Apple Juice (58 M&Ms), Water

Group 4: Orange Juice (54 M&Ms), Milk (25 M&Ms), Water

Gatorade Pepsi

Lemonade

Apple Juice Orange Juice Water

Kool-aid Vitamin Water Milk

After showing them how much sugar is in these beverages, each group will be asked to come up

with one way to reduce the amount of sugar they drink. Some suggestions could be:

- Mix half the amount of juice with half the amount of water. This will still provide flavor

but with half the amount of sugar.

- Iced tea and hot tea are great ways to add flavor without adding sugar.

- Adding cucumber, lemon, or orange to your water makes a great flavor addition with a

very minimal amount of sugar.

- Always have a glass of water with each meal before drinking any juice or soda. This may

ensure that the amount of sugary beverage consumed is reduced.

Materials: Cups labeled with amount of M&Ms, M&Ms, cards with images of beverages

Evaluation

Children will be tested to ensure that they have retained the information presented during the

lesson and learning activities. Children will remain in the same groups from learning activity #2

and each given the full set of cards (seen above) including images of beverages discussed during

the lesson. Teams will be timed, and instructed to order the cards from beverage containing least

amount of sugar to most amount of sugar. Incorrect answers will be corrected and a discussion

will follow.

Why we chose this topic and why we think our lesson plan will be effective:

The Centers for Disease Control report that 18% of children ages 6-11 are obese, and the

figure for overweight is much greater.3 Obese children are at greater risk for cardiovascular

disease and diabetes, a condition often related to consumption of excess sugar. In addition,

research continues to show that sugar is highly detrimental to health. We now know that the

body converts excess sugars to fats, so the connection between overconsumption of sugar,

obesity, and diabetes is further strengthened. Therefore, teaching children about sugar and how

they can reduce their consumption of it is important.

This lesson plan is not highly technical. At this age, it is not important to teach children

exactly what the biochemical mechanisms are which cause excess sugar to convert to fat. It is,

however, important to tell them simply that sugar can contribute to weight gain and diabetes. It is

also important to teach children which commonly consumed foods and beverages contain high

amounts of sugar so that they can begin to make better and educated decisions about their diet.

References

1. The Nutrition Facts Label. Retrieved on November 8, 2015 from

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/IngredientsPackagingLabeling/LabelingNutrition/UCM410

486.pdf

2. Kids and Sugar – the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. (2012, March 21).Retrieved on November

6, 2015 from http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-

blog/kids-and-sugar/bgp-20056149.

3. Childhood Obesity Facts. (2015, August 27). Retrieved on November 8, 2015 from

http://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/obesity/facts.htm.