Embedded Files
Lesson Overview
Lesson Overview
Guiding question: What are macronutrients?
Time Estimate: 1.5 hours
Purpose: In this lesson, students will identify carbs, proteins, and fats as macronutrients and explain why each macronutrient is important for a healthy body. Students will identify which foods are good sources for the various macronutrients and create a balanced plate.
Overview: Students will be introduced to macronutrients, encompassing three main types: carbohydrates, protein, and fats. Specifically, within the carbohydrates category, both complex and simple carbs will be introduced by reading. Following this, students will engage in critical thinking exercises, contemplating the macronutrients in pizza or hamburgers. Students will be familiarized with nutrition facts labels commonly found on food packaging. This segment will also provide a basic understanding of micronutrients at a surface level. Students will create a balanced and healthy dinner plate as they grasp the significance of a well-rounded diet.
Design Principles:
Student voice
Background Knowledge: All necessary background knowledge will come from this lesson.
Common Misconceptions: Students might think all fats are bad for health. While saturated and trans fats should be limited, unsaturated fats (found in avocados, nuts, and olive oil) are essential for a healthy diet. Students might also think Carbohydrates are solely responsible for weight gain. However, Carbohydrates are a primary energy source, and it's essential to choose complex carbs (whole grains, fruits, vegetables) over simple sugars.
Safety: NA
Unit Connections:
Instructional Sequence
Instructional Sequence
Materials: Teacher Slides 2.2 What are macronutrients
Macronutrients (Slide 1-5)
The instructor will introduce the three main types of macronutrients: carbohydrates, protein, and fats. The instructor will inform students about the functions of each macronutrient in our body.
In groups, students will identify and list foods in each category on their provided worksheets. It's crucial to note that some foods may contain more than one macronutrient, although they tend to be particularly rich in one specific category.
As individuals, students will choose either hamburgers or pizza and list some ingredients. Then match each ingredient with its corresponding type of macronutrient. Recall the activity where the class discussed the ingredients in these foods to help students make the connections.
📒 Instructional Support
Probing Questions
Do beans have carbohydrates? How about protein?
What are some examples of foods that you think may contain more than one macronutrient?
What does it mean when a food falls into two different macronutrient categories?
Complex and simple carbs (Slides 6-8)
In groups, students will read a short passage on the worksheet, contemplating how to make informed choices between simple and complex carbohydrates. To make these choices, students will consider ingredients categorized as carbohydrates and brainstorm ways to enhance the nutritional value of a hamburger or pizza.
🗣️ Discourse opportunity:
Group discussion
Nutrition Facts label (Slides 9-11)
Students will explore the information available on a nutrition facts label, focusing on the macronutrients they have learned and determining their quantities in the food. Additionally, the label includes micronutrients. While micronutrients are not the primary focus of this unit, the instructor can introduce them at a surface level.
🗣️ Discourse opportunity:
Class discussion
📒 Instructional Support
Probing Question for the next slide
Why do companies present nutrition information in the nutrition facts label?
Balanced and healthy diet (Slides 12-17)
People use nutrition information to manage their food intake for a healthy lifestyle. To make informed choices about what to eat, students will reflect on their daily dinner plates. They will list some of the foods they regularly eat for dinner or had for dinner yesterday on the worksheet.
On the next slide, there are recommendations for the proportion of macronutrients people should consider. Students will evaluate whether their plate seems balanced and healthy. They will also have the opportunity to make changes to the foods on their plate to achieve a more balanced and healthier meal. In groups, students can share how they made changes to achieve a more balanced nutrition.
📕 Worksheet
Student material: 2.2 Balanced and healthy diet
🗣️ Discourse opportunity:
Group discussion
📒 Instructional Support
Probing Questions
Is your dinner plate balanced in nutrition? If not, how can you change it?
Do you need more carbohydrates, proteins, or fats?
Do you have to cut some carbohydrates, proteins, or fats?
Remind: Food waste diary (Slides 18-19)
Students will share their diaries at the beginning of Lesson Set 3. Please ensure they are recording their entries and bring their diaries to class.
📕 Worksheet
Information for Planning & Teaching
Information for Planning & Teaching
Background Knowledge
What Is the Difference Between Simple and Complex Carbs?
There are two types of carbohydrates: simple and complex. Simple carbs consist of short molecule chains, while complex carbs have longer chains.
Carbs, protein, and fat are our food's three main nutrient groups. During digestion, all three are broken down into elements the body can use for energy. For instance, protein is reduced to amino acids, and fat breaks into fatty acids, both stored for future use. Carbs, however, are unique. They break down into sugars that, after a brief stop in the liver, enter the bloodstream and become an immediate energy source for the body's cells. With their short molecule chains, simple carbs are easy for the body to break down, while complex carbs take longer.
What Are Simple Carbohydrates?
As the name suggests, simple carbs have a basic chemical structure. They may be monosaccharides, such as a single sugar molecule like glucose, or disaccharides with two simple sugars linked together, like lactose (milk sugars). Simple carbs are relatively easy for the body to digest. Enzymes in the small intestine break them down before they enter the bloodstream. Any sugar that isn't used right away is stored as fat, contributing to weight gain.
Many foods, such as fruit, dairy, and some vegetables, contain simple carbs and are rich sources of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. However, not all simple carbs are nutritious. Refined sugars in candies, sodas, syrups, and added sugars in cookies and pastries lack vitamins, minerals, and fiber and can lead to weight gain and health problems like heart disease.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends limiting added sugars to less than 10% of total daily calories, which, for most adults, amounts to about 12 teaspoons. Kids under two shouldn't have any added sugars at all.
What Are Complex Carbohydrates?
Complex carbs consist of longer, more complex chains of sugar molecules known as oligosaccharides and polysaccharides. They take longer to digest than simple carbs, causing a slower rise in blood sugar. Complex carb foods include whole grains, starchy and non-starchy vegetables, beans, and legumes.4
Examples of nutritious complex carbs include:
Brown rice, wild rice, oatmeal, whole-grain (rather than pearled) barley, quinoa (a seed), buckwheat (a grass), starchy veggies like potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn, non-starchy veggies like asparagus and zucchini, lentils, kidney beans,chickpeas.
These foods are excellent sources of fiber, which helps keep blood sugar levels from spiking too high, controls cholesterol levels, and is essential for digestive health.
Lesson Timing
Student Ideas & Experiences
Encourage students to reflect on their meals and identify the macronutrients present. Ask them to consider how they can create a more balanced plate with various foods. As students bring a variety of foods and different experiences into the classroom, it would be engaging to have some items with nutrition facts labels. This hands-on activity will connect real-life experiences to scientific knowledge more closely.
Science Practices
Teaching Cases
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