Third graders learn to teach their peers about heart health.
The choices children make now will affect their future health. Unfortunately, the poor choices typical with today’s lifestyles lead to heart problems. So, to promote a future generation with healthier hearts, Lake Health, with expertise from education consultant Jacqueline Hoynes, PhD, has teamed up with several third grade classes in the Riverside, Mentor and Willoughby-Eastlake school systems.
The challenge
Third-graders are asked to create presentations to teach their peers how to be heart healthy. They work in teams of four to investigate heart-healthy behaviors and to produce something that will teach others what they learn.
Over the four-week program, the students develop their own questions and research the answers. They also meet with Lake Health clinical, nutrition, exercise and wellness professionals to ask questions and gain knowledge about heart health. The teams make notes, write statements and create charts and graphs based on what they learn.
“Throughout the process, the students learn how to collaborate and organize their work,” explains Dr. Hoynes. “The teams gain feedback from classmates, then make revisions and complete their presentations.”
In the end, each team exhibits a poster or video with information that supports what they’ve learned about how nutrition, activity and emotions affect heart health.
A health and education connection
"This partnership program between Lake Health and the third grade classes in local school systems is a win-win opportunity for the children,” says Lake Health president and CEO Cynthia Moore-Hardy, FACHE. “While the students learn and teach others about how to protect their future heart health, the innovative curriculum―known as problem-based learning―teaches strategies critical for success in the twenty-first century."
This problem-based learning curriculum meets and promotes current reading, writing and math education requirements, while encouraging future heart health.
