Fuel and Focus

In lesson one, pairs rank six snacks by how long each one would keep them going, and they usually disagree. The slides then explain the science behind it. The brain runs on glucose, and it only has whatever your last meal gave you. The class follows a biscuit across a blood sugar graph, writes the four criteria in their own words, and then ranks the same six snacks again using the food labels.

In lesson two, students make pinwheel wraps, oat and seed balls, or fruit and yoghurt pots. None of them need heat, sharp knives or nuts, and every ingredient has a swap listed for gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan students. The ingredients come out of a school budget, so no student is out of pocket. Before anyone eats, each pair says which ingredient does each of the four jobs.

The homework is to write a recipe card rather than cook a snack, so a student without a kitchen at home can still arrive with the work done. In lesson three, the class marks one card together, then the cards pass two tables along and are scored out of four. The lesson ends by going back to the ranking students made in lesson one.