How We Learn and Healthy Eating

Digestive System

As part of the Who We Are Inquiry students are learning about the digestive system - how food turns to energy in our body.  They are studying text and pictures, discussing with their teacher and class mates how food moves through our body and how eventually food gives us energy we need to learn, play and be healthy.

Learning in Different Ways

They students will then 'Show What They Know' using the 4 main learning styles.  

Verbal, Visual, Tactile and Kinaesthetic learning. 

After completing all four activies the students will be lead to reflect on which learning style was most fun, effective for learning and if they prefer one over the other.  

In the end - it is best for everyone to learn in a variety of ways.

Healthy Eating

Having studied how food turns to energy in our body, they will then be challenged to analyse their own eating habits and make recommendations to improve current diet.

To do this the students will then keep a record of the food they eat in a week and compare it to each other and to the traditional Khmer/Asian Food Pyramid.

The Inquiry will then lead onto to 'What changes can we make?'

They will apply the Thinking Hat to the idea of Soksan International School having a Break Time Cafe - run by community members in collaboration with teachers and students.

Ah, the joys of an uninhibited curriculum.

Healthy Eating and De Bono's Thinking Hats -

To get the students at Soksan School thinking, we introduced De Bono's Thinking Hats to the teachers.  Initially we applied the 'Thinking Hats' (feelings, positives, negatives and new ideas) to simple statements like: We go to school everyday of the week or We don't wear a school uniform.

We then used the Hats to analyse what sort of foods the students are eating at break-time.

Using the White Hat first (facts) we found that 95% of the food eaten came in a plastic wrapper and had high levels of sugar and salt, with little nutritional value.

Having listed all feelings, positive and negatives, we used the Green Hat to brainstorm what we could do to improve the situation.  We decided to do this activity with the students as part of the Who We Are Unit (Health and Hygiene) to prompt student so take a close look at the food that goes into their bodies and also the plastic rubbish that is left behind.

 The next day we bought a shop opposite the school!!! Things happen quickly here at Soksan.

It is our hope that the Inquiry will lead to opening a shop of our own with healthy options.  I'd like to call the Cambodian 'cafe' - Nyum Nyum - which means Eat Eat in English. 

 For all of $US41 we got 3 large baskets of packed/processed foods and the bamboo shop it self.  As part of studying We Are What We Eat, we plan to compare the nutrition of  the items in the old shop with more natural/cultural items.

 An example of traditional Cambodian food:  Banana, coconut and sweet rice cooked in banana leaf over hot coals.  (No plastic either!)

One costs 500riel (US$0.12 cents) to buy.  And they are as long as your hand - and SO good!

Surely the power of De Bono's Thinking Hats is its ability to slow down and deepen the thinking.   Here's hoping Soksan has new nYum nYum Cafe in the near future.