SITE SUMMARY for: Marlborough Elementary School Use for all sites (other than conferences and reading).

. Post to your portfolio within 7 days of completing work at the site. For Community sites, team leaders should submit the updated Site Book and Team Leader Report to their advisor at the same time.

Intern name: Claudia Gumina Rotation: Community Rotation dates from: 11/12 to: 11/26

Date: 12/2/2013 Preceptor: Karen Balnis Total hours: 42.5

1. Describe the projects and activities you completed during this experience. For this site, Hilary and I taught classes to children aged 9-11 about healthy eating and the influence of advertisement on their food choices. Our first class revolved around energy balanced, and we used MyPlate and other visuals to explain the concepts. We tried to make it very interactive and that seemed to work very well. For our second class we discussed how food ads affect the decisions we make when eating. The children understood what we explained for the most part and by the end our our last class, they incorporated what they had learned in the previous classes by creating a "healthy food ad" on their own and presenting it to their classmates. For each of the presentations, we had a food activity which got the children to try new things. 2. What new knowledge was gained or new skills practiced? One thing that I definitely practiced was making presentations and material age appropriate. I have always had a hard time making concepts simpler because I am used to a more scientific content. I think I did manage to make the material so that the kids would enjoy it and understand it. I learned that for this age, making classes interactive is very important because it keeps the students engaged. Similarly, I learned that you will achieve nothing without class management and that is one thing that I definitely need more practice on. 3. Identify the roll of the nutrition professional at this site and discuss your interactions with the professionals and audience members at the site. As nutrition professionals, our role at the school was to educate the children on healthy eating practices. Since we were working with such a young, impressionable audience, we were in a position where we needed to be careful with what we say in order to avoid any misunderstandings. I think that one of our main goals as educators is to get people, and in this case children to have a healthy relationship with food and that's why we avoided words like dieting and calories for the most part. Joe, our main contact at the site was great and incredibly helpful. He participated in some of the classes and was easy to reach in case we needed something. The teachers were also good at providing feedback. The children were all very different though similar within grades. The 5th graders were incredibly smart for their age, in my opinion, and always knew where we were going with our presentations. They were very good at reaching accurate conclusions. The 4th graders were a bit more difficult and hard to control so we had to push them a bit more in the right direction. Surprinsingly, the 3rd graders were more involved and excited to participate. They did a great job with all our activities. 4. Were there regulations or rules at this site that were related to the Scope of Practice for Nutrition and Dietetics, or the Code of Ethics?

I think one of the main things related to the code of ethics was teaching the classes objectively and meeting the needs of the individuals in the sense that we needed to make the material appealing and appropriate for children. I don't know that this was a rule, but we definitely had to be sensitive to age differences. 5. What did you learn about the audience / population group? What did you learn about yourself? I learned that children are all very different and you cannot put them under one category because they will surpise you. I also learned that getting the children to participate and find the answers to questions on their own is a very effective way of teaching kids. Because it becomes a bit of a game to them, it makes them more interested. Regarding what I learned about myself, I learned that I actually love working with children. I had always thought that I wanted to work in geriatric nutrition after I get my credentials, but working with children was so rewarding. It is very nice to be able to talk about nutrition without having to worry about heart disease, diabetes and other problems associated with aging. While I am still very interested in this area of nutrition, I think working with children gives you a little more freedom. 6. Describe how you were effective with this topic or with this group. What would you do differently in the future? As I have mentioned already, what I think worked the best with this population was making our presentations very interactive. We tried to keep the straight talking to a minimun so that the children would not get bored and stop paying attention and this seemed to have worked because they always had something to say, even when we had moved on to another question. On that note, one thing I would do differently is plan ahead for class management. Getting kids to be quiet is very difficult, and when we told them to get into groups, it sometimes became very chaotic. It is important to account for these things in advance to avoid losing time. 7. Summarize the ways that you applied wellness concepts and messages in this rotation. Discuss whether there were any opportunities to promote sustainable food choices or address sustainability from a food systems perspective. Throughout our classes, Hilary and I made sure to emphasize the importance of consuming balanced meals and incorporating different types of foods into our diets.With our food activities, we always brought a variety of food items that they may not have had before and introduced them to new things. We discussed energy balance and how to spend more energy daily. Because of the age of our audience, they are not the ones buying what they eat so it was hard to promote sustainable food choices.