Proper Nutrition for Middle
School Students
Nick Cacciola
Introduction
Why is it that you are always tired during the day? You are constantly getting stomach aches
throughout the entire school day. You
don’t know the reasons behind these uncomfortable feelings. Your teachers are always telling you that you
cannot go to the bathroom. They tell you
that if you continue to miss class, due to frequent visits to the nurse’s
office you will fail. Indeed you do have
stomach aches and feel drowsy, but you don’t understand why.
Task
Bad stomach aches, constant headaches and complete
drowsiness are just some of the many effects of poor nutrition at the middle
school age level. Your task is to
compose an article for The Emerson Times which addresses the following
questions/problems: How does poor nutrition affect the lives of young
adolescent children? What kind of
policies/procedures can we come up with/develop to help prevent or reduce these
problems? You must use the Public Policy
Analyst, PPA, process to complete your article.
Remember, your data/input is extremely valuable to you and your peers. Your awareness and new found knowledge could
be the driving force that saves today’s youth from poor nutrition and all its
harmful affects.
Process
To complete your article, you must follow the Public Policy
Analyst procedure. The PPA process
consists of the following 6 components. Use the information links to read about
each step in the procedure. This will assist you in understanding your task.
·
Define the problem- Information on Defining the Problem
·
Gather evidence- Information on Gathering Evidence
·
Identify causes of the
problem- Information on Identifying Causes
·
Evaluate existing
public policies on the problem- Information on Evaluating Existing Policies
·
Develop original
policy solutions- Information on Developing Solutions
·
Choose the best
solution- Information on Choosing the Solution
Listed below are websites that contain worksheets for each component
of the PPA procedure. Click on the links
and complete each worksheet to help you summarize and organize your findings.
Resources
If you need a little assistance along your web quest
journey, listed below are some valuable resources that may be used to help you
throughout the duration of your mission.
These resources are just to help you get started. It is my expectation that you will use other
web pages to gather information. Do not
restrict your research to the sites that have been provided for you.
Evaluation
You will be graded on your use and completion of the PPA
procedures and worksheets. Also your
grade will be based on how organized and clear your thoughts are throughout
your newspaper article. I have
constructed the following 4 point rubric for your use as a guide throughout
your project.
Rubric
Proper Nutrition for Middle School Students
Emerson Times Article
Mr. Cacciola
Name of Student:
CATEGORY |
4 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
Quality
of Information |
Information
clearly relates to the main topic. It includes several supporting details
and/or examples. |
Information
clearly relates to the main topic. It provides 1-2 supporting details and/or
examples. |
Information
clearly relates to the main topic. No details and/or examples are given. |
Information
has little or nothing to do with the main topic. |
Organization |
Information
is very organized and follows a newspaper article format. |
Information
is organized and follows a newspaper article format. |
Information
is organized, but does not follow a newspaper article format. |
The
information appears to be disorganized. |
Public
Policy Analysis |
All six
steps of the PPA are addressed and all six worksheets are correctly
completed. |
All six
steps of the PPA are addressed and most of the worksheets are completed
correctly. |
Almost
all of the PPA steps are addressed and the worksheets need improvement. |
Missing
PPA steps and worksheets are incomplete. |
Mechanics |
No
grammatical, spelling or punctuation errors. |
Almost
no grammatical, spelling or punctuation errors |
A few
grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors. |
Many
grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors |
Science
Standard 1: Analysis, Inquiry, and Design
Standard 2: Information Systems
Standard 4: Science
Standard 7: Interdisciplinary Problem Solving
Conclusion
Congratulations!!! You have now successfully completed your
research, and therefore you web quest, on middle school nutrition!! Your Public Policy Analyst, PPA, is now
complete. Hopefully you have learned a
great deal of information on this topic.
You can now consider yourself an expert on middle school nutrition. Your newspaper article will be published in
next month’s Emerson Times. Always
remember to work hard and stay focused, everyone makes a difference!