Eating/Exercise/Heart Disease and Diabetes

Weir Attendance Center

Frances Coleman, John Hamby,

David Jones, and Carol Wright

Objective -- Students will study:

• The environmental rather than the hereditary factors of body weight

• Food intake and exercise on body weight

• Effect of body weight on heart disease and diabetes

Rationale:

• Obesity is a national problem

• Mississippi has the highest percentage of people with heart disease in the nation

• Choctaw County has one of the highest percentages of heart disease in the state

• Students need to learn the effects of obesity and ways to avoid it

Procedure -- Students will:

• View/discuss/experiment with a Stella model• Research the problem of obesity/heart

disease/diabetes in local communities• Explore nutritional value of foods • Investigate energy requirements of exercise• Write a personal health plan• Use Excel to compare results of local community

members and calculate statistical differences• Make visual representations of research results

Things to include:

• Teacher background material• Student handouts• Internet resources catalogued by subject• Lesson plans for different courses that

might use the unit• Simple Excel models that would serve as

model learning tools for students 

Assessment

• Rubric evaluation of Stella model

• Evaluation of personal health plan

• Public presentations by students of statistical work using their visual representations

Resources

• Jackson Heart Study

• University of Mississippi Medical Center Physiology Department