All About Food
The Food unit allows students to have fun learning about food sources, healthy eating, food safety, food groups and overall nutrition. The unit’s integrated components help students understand important science, health and environmental concepts related to food and food safety.
The Science of Food Teacher’ Guide provides inquiry-based lessons that entice students to discover concepts in science, mathematics and health through hands-on activities.
The Mysterious Marching Vegetables. In the storybook, cousins Riff and Rosie learn that leaves are disappearing from some of the plants in Mr. Slaptail's garden. What is happening to the leaves? Rosie, Riff and Mr. Slaptail brainstorm to solve the mystery and come up with a plan to discover who or what is behind the missing vegetables. What do the three friends discover?
Explorations is a colorful magazine full of articles and fun things for children and adults to try in class or at home, including hands-on activities, such as finding out how much fat is hidden in favorite foods.
The Math Link extends each unit by connecting the story and hands-on science activities to mathematics skill-building and critical thinking exercises, and The Reading Link provides language arts activities related to the story.
The Science of Food Teacher's Guide
Students investigate food sources, food webs and food chains, healthy eating and food groups, food safety and overall nutrition.
The Science of Food Classroom Slides
Slide set containing information and images from The Science of Food Teacher's Guide, for use in classrooms as needed.
What's That Food? (pre-assessment)
Students observe and describe samples of different food groups. This activity can be used as a pre-assessment of students' knowledge about food and nutritional needs.View this lesson Download PDF Digital Slide Set
What Is Soil Made Of?
Students explore a sample of natural soil by identifying and separating its different components.View this lesson Download PDF Digital Slide Set
Do Plants Need Light?
Students learn about plant growth and development by conducting an experiment that demonstrates the importance of light to plants.View this lesson Download PDF Digital Slide Set
Plant Parts You Eat
Students observe and investigate different plant-originated foods, and learn about plant parts.View this lesson Download PDF Digital Slide Set
Students construct possible food webs for six different ecosystems and learn about producers, consumers, herbivores, carnivores and decomposers.View this lesson Download PDF Digital Slide Set
Students learn about digestion and proteins by observing the action of meat tenderizer on luncheon meat.View this lesson Download PDF Digital Slide Set
Students make a simple model food chain and observe how toxins can accumulate in consumers at the top of the chain.View this lesson Download PDF Digital Slide Set
They're Everywhere: Bacteria
Students grow bacteria collected from a variety of locations and compare the results.View this lesson Download PDF Digital Slide Set
Using Food Labels
Students learn about food labels, healthful eating, and units of measurement commonly used on food labels.View this lesson Download PDF Digital Slide Set
Safe Food Preparation
Students learn about safe food preparation by making fruit ice cream in class.View this lesson Download PDF Digital Slide Set
Free, downloadable components from the Food unit for teaching your students about food, food groups and labels, and food safety.
The Mysterious Marching Vegetables
Rosie and Riff go undercover with Mr. Slaptail to discover why spinach is disappearing from Mr. Slaptail's garden. This storybook is an integrated component of the Food unit.
Students match foods with the appropriate food groups, and they learn about food labels, plants and photosynthesis, food as fuel for the body, and more.
The Math Link
Math worksheets designed to meet common mathematics objectives. Activities are integrated with the storybook, The Mysterious Marching Vegetables.
The Reading Link
Reading and language arts worksheets with activities that are directly related to the unit storybook.
Make a Paper Ant Chain
Students create a paper ant chain from a template provided in the Food unit storybook, The Mysterious Marching Vegetables.
Nutrition expert, Roberta Anding, discusses the major concerns, key issues, and healthy behaviors related to fitness and nutrition among adolescent populations.Video Digital Slide Set
William J. Klish, MD, discusses problems brought on by childhood obesity and current trends across the U.S.
Overview of the relationships between environmental systems and life on our planet, including common terms and concepts related to ecosystems.Video Digital Slide Set
Good safety habits are critical in any learning environment, especially during inquiry science investigations. This presentation covers key safety concerns and provides tips to help make your science classroom safer.Video Digital Slide Set
The Environment and Human Health
Learn how the environment impacts human health and the ecosystems around us, on both a small/local and large/global scale.Video Digital Slide Set
BioEd Online is pleased to provide current biology and life sciences news stories from Nature News, the science syndication arm of the premier international science publisher, the Nature Publishing Group.
For articles on a variety of topics, visit BioEd Online's Nature News library.
The Air Unit
The Air unit lets students creatively explore air and the atmosphere, air quality and related issues such as allergens in the places we live, study and work.
The Global Change Unit
The Global Change unit gives students an opportunity to investigate a variety of physical and life science concepts related to energy, metabolism and the role of nutrients in the body.
The Water Unit
The Water unit provides students with a fresh look at water and lets them discover why it is necessary to the well-being of all living creatures.
Funded by the following grant(s)
My Health My World: National Dissemination
Grant Number: 5R25ES009259
The Environment as a Context for Opportunities in Schools
Grant Number: 5R25ES010698
Filling the Gaps: K-6 Science/Health Education
Grant Number: 5R25RR013454, R25ES06932