Teacher & Student Materials > Feeding a Hungry Planet
What are macronutrients?
30 minutes
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.
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All necessary background knowledge will come from this lesson.
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Materials:
Describe what the macronutrients are and explain that most foods contain more than one macronutrient, but usually, they are rich in one of them.
**matching game
Ask students, ‘What is a healthy and balanced diet.’
Each macronutrient is important for different aspects of our health and activity.
Whole-class discussion
It’s important to talk about complex (“good”) carbs as opposed to simple (“bad”) carbs that have no additional nutritional benefits and are digested too quickly.
Student material: 2.2 Student’s Dinner
In this activity, students record what they eat daily and then compare it to a recommended healthy plate.
Students should create their dinner plates either
1. using the sticky notes from the previous lesson and sticking them on paper plates to create an “ideal” plate based upon what they said they eat, or 2. drawing their dinner on paper plates.
Then, in small groups, ask a few students to share their dinner plates and review them in light of the recommended plate in slide 6, thinking about ways to improve their diet.
Summarize: Ask a few groups to share their conclusions about their plates.
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