Teaching Sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

15 minutes – Part A: Why Be Healthy?
40 minutes – Part B: How Much Sugar?
20 minutes – Part C: The Benefits of Halving Sugar
15 minutes – Reflection

Part A: Why Be Healthy?

Step 1.

Invite students to complete the Think-Pair-Share visible thinking routine in response to the question:

Why is it good to be healthy?

There is space provided on the Student Worksheet for them to do so.

Step 2.

Raise the following points if students have not done so:

We can live longer, healthier lives
Can do more things that make us happy
We can contribute to the society we live in
We can set and achieve goals in life
We can work
We can do things in our leisure time
We can travel
Being healthy generally results in our options being more open - when we are healthy, we aren’t limited by physical or mental constraints and can do the best we can to lead a fulfilling life.

Link to the next part of the lesson by informing students that how we fuel our bodies can have a huge impact on our health and wellbeing.

Part B: How Much Sugar?

Step 1.

Draw students' attention to the amount of sugar that we can potentially consume each day, even when we are eating foods marketed as ‘healthy’. Invite students to seat themselves where they can see the screen, and introduce the clip below by explaining that it is from That Sugar Film. The clip features the star of the documentary counting the amount of sugar in his supposedly ‘healthy’ breakfast.

'First breakfast', That Sugar Film (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtvAhvao-lQ)

Optional extra: If students require further information about sugar and its effects on the body, screen the following clip (created by the same people who made That Sugar Film):

'The Science of Sugar - Sugar', That Sugar Film (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3efayTeGzs)

This clip appears in other SugarByHalf lessons, so students may only need to be prompted to recall what they have already learned about sugar and its effects on the body from the clip.

Step 2.

Highlight for students that the World Health Organisation recommends that our sugar consumption be limited to about six teaspoons, or 25 grams of sugar each day.

Inform the class that they will learn more about the health benefits of cutting back on sugar throughout the rest of the lesson.

Part C: The Benefits of Halving Sugar

Step 1.

This activity could be completed either independently or in pairs. Invite students to seat themselves according to how they will work. Inform students that in this part of the lesson, they will read through one or more articles about sugar and the human body. They will learn about how sugar impacts the human body, and draw conclusions about the benefits of eating less sugar. They will also analyse the credibility of health messages in the article in terms of bias, reliability and validity.

Step 2.

Ask students to follow the instructions below (also on the Student Worksheet):

Take out your web-enabled devices and access one or more of the articles (linked below)
Read through the article
Respond to these questions:
- What does the article say about the effect of sugar on the body?
- Does the article say anything about the effect of sugar on wellbeing more generally? If yes, what?
- Does the article suggest anything about actions we could take, or changes we could make? If yes, summarise them here.
- According to the article, how could our health improve if we limited our consumption of sugar? (In order to answer this question, you may need to think about the risks highlighted in the article and describe the opposite of those risks.)
- How do you know that the information you’ve read is reliable?
- Where did the information come from? Is it from a reliable source?
- What research has been referenced or cited? Note that it might appear as hyperlinks within the article or as footnotes at the end of the article. Does it seem reliable?
- Who wrote the article? Do they have qualifications in the field they are claiming to be an expert in? If yes, what are their qualifications? And why do these qualifications make them an expert on the topic?

If your school has an online LMS, you might want to copy and paste the links (or the entire Student Worksheet) somewhere that students can access them without having to type the URLs manually. Alternatively, print off enough of the articles below to distribute one to each student.

Step 3.

This step focuses on providing students with the opportunity to share what they have uncovered about the benefits of reducing sugar consumption. To visualise the holistic nature of these benefits, students create a diagram of the human body labelled head-to-toe with the benefits of reduced sugar consumption.

Measure a length of paper (from a roll) long enough to trace a body onto, and ask a pair of volunteers to draw an outline of a human body - one student will trace the outline of the other. Alternatively, draw a large diagram of a human body on the whiteboard.

Ask volunteers to share their findings about the health benefits of reducing sugar consumption, annotating the part of the human body with the information the student provides. If required, add images to the diagram (such as the brain, the liver, the stomach).

Once all students have shared their information, an extensive diagram of the health benefits of reducing sugar should have emerged. Display the diagram in a place where students can refer to it when they are writing their reflection as well as look at it in future.

Reflection

Invite students to think about how the health information they have throughout the lesson may or may not apply to their own health-related decisions. On the Student Worksheet, they are prompted with the following:

After learning about the health benefits of lessening your sugar intake, how motivated are you to change your intake (on a scale of 1-10)? Write down a reason for the rating you have given.

Differentiated Learning

Extension - Invite students to extend on their ideas from Part A by creating a mind-map that explores the connections between reduced sugar consumption and health and wellbeing. Prompt them to place to this question in the middle of a blank page:

Why is it good to be healthy?

Then, invite students to explore their ideas around the question by adding bubbles to their mind-map, and creating links between each idea.

Provisions for Learning Support - Organise a teacher-led group in Part C of the lesson. If required, designate articles to students according to their individual requirements.

Teacher Reflection

Take this opportunity to reflect on your own teaching:

What did you learn about your teaching today?
What worked well?
What didn't work so well?
What would you share?
Where to next?
How are you going to get there?

Taking it Further

If you would like more information about SugarByHalf or the movement to reduce our sugar intake, check out the SugarByHalf Teachers Network here.

SugarByHalf would also love to share the results of your teaching with the world! If your students are making amazing changes, consider emailing info@sugarbyhalf.com to let them know. They're excited to tell people about your success!

SugarByHalf - Why Halve Sugar?

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