GREATER PLAINS ELEMENTARY SERVICE LEARNING PROJECT

MADISON FREEMAN, ALEXANDRIA MULLER

INTRODUCTION

¡ Target Audience: 2nd grade students at Greater Plains Elementary School

¡ Determination of Needs: Community and Target Audience Needs Assessment
¡ Developed a PES and intervention plan based on our findings
¡ Conducted an Nutrition Education Intervention to best solve the presented Problem
¡ Determine Outcome Objectives and Goals and compared them to results
¡ Developed Outcome Evaluation
COMMUNITY PARTNER NEEDS ASSESSMENT

¡ Community Partner: Mrs. Debra Harlem

¡ What was done: In person interview
¡ Why it was done: Teacher's perspective on biggest nutritional issues facing her class
¡ Results:
¡ Previous 5-2-1-0 exposure
¡ Understanding of 5-2-1-0 components
¡ Physical Activity at school
¡ Students who bring food vs. Students who buy food- most bring food
¡ Popular snacks= convenience foods
¡ Best way to teach her students
TARGET AUDIENCE NEEDS ASSESSMENT

¡ Target Audience: 2nd grade students and their parents

¡ What was done: Parent Survey and Student Survey
¡ Why it was done: To further assess the needs of the target market through a comprehensive approach
¡ Parent survey provided us with information from their eating and activity habits at home
¡ Student survey provided us with their opinion and knowledge regarding nutrition, food, and physical activity
NEEDS ASSESSMENT RESULTS
Parent Survey Student Survey
How do you feel about vegetables?

How do you feel about fruits?

DIAGNOSIS

¡ Undesirable food choices related to lack of personal preference for vegetables as evidence by undecided
preference for vegetables made by 55% of class, lack of variation in vegetable consumption and average report of
daily vegetable consumption= <2 servings/day.
INTERVENTION PLAN

¡ Goal: Increase the students' acceptance and familiarity of wider variety of vegetables.
¡ Outcome Objectives:
¡ 1) 75% of students will rate 75% of the vegetable samples positively at the end of the intervention.
¡ 2) Students will try 75% of vegetables presented to them during the span of the intervention.
¡ Strategies:
¡ 1) Eat the rainbow poster and presentation
¡ 2) Vegetable mystery bag game
¡ 3) Handout to children and parents
INTERVENTION IMPLEMENTATION

• A presentation about eating a variety of colors each day was delivered

using an "Eat the Rainbow" poster

• Students were asked to play a guessing game with a variety of colorful

vegetables, both familiar and less typical examples
• The vegetables were placed in a brown paper bag and students were
asked in small groups to feel/smell them and guess
• Students could then try the vegetables in their raw form and were
asked to rate them on a hedonic scale
OUTCOME
OBJECTIVE RESULTS
¡ 86% of students tried each
vegetable, which exceeded the
goal of 75%
¡ On average, 53% of students
rated the vegetables positively,
which did not meet our goal.

Vegetable % of students who rated

positively
Eggplant 41%
Red Pepper 76%
Zucchini 47%
Carrots 64%
Yellow Tomatoes 35%
CONCLUSION

¡ Students in this age group were receptive and excited about playing guessing games with the vegetables
¡ This is a successful strategy for future groups
¡ Students were open to trying the vegetables after they were exposed to them, as evidenced by the high
percentage of participation
¡ Trying the vegetables did not necessarily increase acceptability
¡ Students were easily swayed by their classmates opinions
¡ It may be better to make smaller groups
FUTURE RECOMMENDATIONS

¡ Reevaluate number of servings of vegetables they are getting per day

¡ Healthy Snack ideas
¡ Further sampling of unique vegetables
¡ Interventions aimed at limiting convenience snacks