Eat Smart, Live Strong is an intervention designed to improve fruit and vegetable consumption and physical activity among 60-74 year olds participating in or eligible for FNS nutrition assistance programs. The intervention can support the efforts of program providers and communities in delivering nutrition education to low-income older adults. Each session in Eat Smart, Live Strong focuses on changing behavior by guiding participants in learning and practicing new skills.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Curriculum can be taught as a series or as stand-alone lessons.

This handout series provides basic cooking information to use with families.

The Eat Together, Eat Better lessons support nutrition, parent, and youth educators in teaching the importance of family meals. The lessons use a mix of interactive learning formats, including small-and large-group discussions, brainstorming, planning, and cooking activities. All of these activities create discussion, encourage problem solving, and develop skills to support family meals.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Lessons can be taught as stand-alone lessons, but each session of the lesson must be taught (child, parent and family sessions).

This handout series provides basic cooking information to use with families.

Eating Smart • Being Active is a healthy eating and active living curriculum designed to be taught to limited-resource adults. The lesson plans of Eating Smart • Being Active are appropriate for use by paraprofessional (peer) nutrition educators when teaching limited-resource adults about healthy lifestyle choices. The curriculum consists of nine core lessons, each designed to be taught in less than 2 hours. All participant materials are available in English and Spanish*. All lessons include a food preparation activity and lessons 2 through 9 include a physical activity segment. Eating Smart • Being Active can be used to teach adults 1-on-1 or in small groups (2-12 people). While the materials could be used in larger groups, adult learning principles guide us toward smaller groups to encourage greater participant involvement and enhanced learning.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

The curriculum consists of nine core lessons, which are designed to be taught in order.

This handout series provides basic cooking information to use with families.

This handout series provides basic cooking information to use with families.

Growing Healthy Habits is a gardening and nutrition education curriculum for elementary aged kids. This resource focuses on integrating nutrition into the classroom through gardening and scripted lessons that meet science, language arts, social studies, health, and math objectives. Growing Healthy Habits uses gardening as a tool for encouraging students to consume more fruits and vegetables and whole grains, and increase physical activity.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Units can be taught in any order and each lesson within each unit can be taught in any order, but all units of the curriculum must be taught.                                                                                 

This handout describes how to compare labels to choose foods lower in sugar.

Health Through Literacy is a book set of five to six books, age-appropriate for each grade K–5. Each set includes books with nutrition or physical activity themes. Every book comes with a tip sheet to enhance the health messages in the book. The tip sheets help teachers discuss the books with their classes, incorporate physical activity into the reading of the book, provide ideas for a food tasting for students, and integrate health messages with other areas of the curriculum.

Go4Life from the National Institute on Aging at NIH is designed to help older adults fit exercise and physical activity into their daily life. This resource explores the kinds of exercises and physical activity that improve health and physical ability.

Curriculum Description

The 2016 revised Junior Master Gardener (JMG) Level 1 curriculum provides elementary teachers with the tools to teach the world of gardening with eight chapters of novel, hands-on and proven lessons. The curriculum also helps develops life skills, includes career exploration and provides opportunities for students to culminate the JMG experience with service-learning projects. As students complete areas of study, they can earn different recognition certifications including designation as Certified Junior Master Gardeners. Each chapter is divided into sections called teaching concepts. Then, there are multiple activities within each teaching concept.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Lessons may be used individually as stand-alone lessons. The program can be implemented in schools, after-school programs, or other groups interested in young gardeners. Teaching multiple activities within a teaching concept is recommended.