As students perform inquiry activities it will give them more practice making their own

discoveries. Teachers can perform inquiry activities across many different subject matters. Some

subjects play well in inquiry lessons such as the science and technology stream. However, there

are many different inquiry activities teachers can perform that fit within the physical education

curriculum. There are lots of ideas for inquiry lessons from the Ontario Physical and Health

Education Association (OPHEA) that match up with the Ontario curriculum. For this lesson the

inquiry is focused around a grade 9 health class learning about healthy eating. The inquiry

question for this lesson is “which culture’s cuisine best represents the Canada Food Guide?”.

There are many variations of inquiry that can be applied to the healthy eating section of the grade

9 physical education section and many different classroom activities. In the class before this one,

students would have been introduced to the Canada’s Food Guide and participated in a short

lesson based on macronutrients. Macronutrients are based on three categories of Carbohydrates,

fats, and proteins. This is to ensure that students can complete future lessons with the prior

knowledge they require.

During this lesson students will have to research about different cultures and a typical or

famous cuisine within these cultures. For the purposes of this lesson, students were given the

options of which cultures to choose from but in reality, students are able to pick any cultures that

they are interested in knowing more about. Students will do this in groups of 3-4 to ensure that

students are experiencing well rounded opinions about the choices they make Keep in mind that

students should keep cultures within 4-5 selections to ensure that they can clearly and simply

compare the cultures. Furthermore, avoid students picking cultures that represent themselves or
the country that they live in. Once the students pick their cultures, they must then choose a dish

that they think best represents that culture’s cuisine. This can be any dish, but students are to

pick one that they all agree is a staple meal within that culture. Students are also suggested that

they do not pick a dessert or breakfast food to ensure that each group has similar meals and are

easily comparable. The next step in this activity will be to get basic ingredients from these meals

or enough information that they can compare it with Canada’s Food Guide. Students can access

the Canadian Food Guide online to ensure that they can gather as much information about it as

they can (Government of Canada, 2019).

After students have selected their meals, they must rank them in order from best to worst

on which meals fit within the Canadian Food Guide the best. The groups must present their

findings to the class and why they chose each dish. After the discussion has taken place, the

groups must then meet back and change one thing about the last ranking cuisine to make it fit the

Canadian Food Guide. The groups must then discuss what they changed and how it would better

meet the requirements outlined by the Canadian Food Guide. This discussion portion of the class

will allow groups to share what they have found and to learn about what other groups have found

about the same overarching topic. This topic allows for many different answers and outcomes

from students which may lead to extension questions. Extension questions are important for

inquiry activities because they show student engagement and also allow students to continue

learning and thinking after the lesson is over.

The final step of the lesson will be to ask the students to answer a couple questions in an

exit card format. The questions will ask about what they had learned and one thing they are still

wondering about after this activity. This will allow the teacher to gauge student learning in an
informal task. Students are to hand these questions in to the teacher but are instructed that they

are not for marks and they do not require their name to be on them. This information will allow

the teacher to form future lessons and potentially review main ideas with the class. Next class

may talk more specifically about other cultures and how cuisines are different.
 References

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. (2013). International Cuisine. Agriculture Council of

Saskatchewan.

Government of Canada. (2019). Eat a variety of healthy foods each day. Retrieved from https://food-

guide.canada.ca/en/

OPHEA. (2016). Inquiry Plan: Grade 9 Healthy Eating. Retrieved from

https://teachingtools.ophea.net/sites/default/files/pdf/hpe_table3_10mr16.pdf

OPHEA. (2016). Inquiry-Based Learning in Health and Physical Education. Retrieved from

https://teachingtools.ophea.net/sites/default/files/pdf/ibl_guide.pdf