Unit 1: Nutrition Reflection Assessment

These last eight weeks have flew by me, being a student in the NEW core and I have learned a lot of different components. In the beginning it was challenging to get accustomed to the core and the ways of teaching, but each day has been better for me and has got me more accustomed to this system. This core is all together is motivating by the teachers and classmates. NEW school for me has changed my way of thinking and helps me learn in different ways.This nutrition unit has had me questioning on what I eat and how it can affect my body.

Nutrition did not matter to me at all until this unit. I did not look at nutrition labels when I went grocery shopping with my mom. All we thought is 'well.. this taste good lets get it' not knowing how bad the ingredients were or the grams of sugar and how it affects our body. I This unit has had me more aware of what I eat. It might sound surprising but i had no idea what GMO's (genetically modified organisms were.

These are some signs i found at the farmers market, a field trip we took in this core. Everything at this market was very fresh picked that morning or day before.

This ice cream was made from milk that was from grass fed cows. I didn't know there was a difference on how cows were fed. Although i did know there was different ways they were treated.

When I talked to the farmers here at the farmers market they had no thoughts on GMO 's and did not even want to talk about them. I was surprised and that is when I realized that I need to know where my food is coming from. How Michael Pollan said in the book The Omnivores Dilemma   we need to know what we are eating, where it came from and how it got to our table. He mentioned it is not something he will do everyday but those are some points to think about when making a meal. 

     Everything I do in this core I try to document into my digital notebook. At this moment I am updating and documenting my Iron chef lab. I am doing this lab with five other group members four sophomores and one freshman. We got a mystery box to work with and create a lab, we ended up with strawberries. Using the knowledge we already had about strawberries was that they grow mold fast. We did research and used skills we learned from Tucker on how to research easier. Our thought on it was that organic strawberries will mold faster than conventional because organic strawberries do not have pesticides or chemicals. When I asked a farmer about her thoughts on our lab and what she thought would happen she had different thoughts. Her thoughts were that conventional strawberries will grow mold faster and more. 

The picture on the left shows my evidence of my digital notebook and my updating on my labs. The picture on the right shows strawberries from the farmer we talked too.

    The digestive system is also a big part of nutrition because bad foods don't digest as well. I knew the basics of the digestive system but I learned what the job of each organ is. I explained all of the jobs of the organs in the digital notebook. The organs job is to absorb nutrients and if people it too much unhealthy food then the organs don't have much nutrients to pull away from that and it will affect the digestive system in a negative way.

This hands on lab we made poop, I learned that the large intestines job is to get the shape of the feces and absorbs the nutrients and calories.

All in all I learned a lot in this unit in a way I understand it. This way of learning ha become easier to underdtand and i'm really enjoying it. Now that I have learned a lot more about nutrition I will pay more attention to what I eat and nutrition labels. Even though I won't hunt, gather or grow food everyday to make a plate I can still go to grocery store and pick out healthy food by looking at labels. Nutrition was a big topic and I am glad we learned about nutrition because it makes me more aware of what I put in my body.