This 5-week self-paced course provides a deep dive into nutrition.  We will be looking at it from the perspective of science.  What is nutrition and how is it studied?  What are micronutrients and micronutrients.  How are they digested and used in the body.  

Each week will include a recorded lesson covering the topic in detail. I use models and drawings to demonstrate the concepts and students will be encouraged to learn by doing.  We will also cover how to read food labels in each class. 

There will be no live zoom meetings so all interaction will occur asynchronously in the classroom. Each week will include 
* a recorded lesson
* a worksheet designed just for this class 
* a link to a video that extends the learning
* discussion questions related to the lesson, the worksheet, and the extension video

Additional ideas for ways to continue the exploration during normal activities are suggested at the end of every lesson. 

More details:

I assume that learners have no prior knowledge on the subject but by the end of the course they will have learned all about the science of nutrition.  My goal is to help learners understand the importance of eating healthy food from a cellular level up so that they are internally motivated to make good choices rather than it being a matter of what they “should” do.

As a physician, I’ve cared for enough patients with food anxiety or eating disorders that I’m careful to keep a food-positive focus.  For example, when discussing the problems with candy and soda, I don’t condemn or shame.  Instead, I focus on the biological impact of more sugar than our body is really meant to handle at once and the historical background of how much sugar humans would have had access to in the past.  

Throughout, I emphasize that extreme food rules have no backing in science and that what is supported by science is eating lots of fruits and vegetables, avoiding processed foods (which I explain/define), etc. 

Students and I will interact in the classroom.  

Prior to each lesson, I will check in about any “noticing” in real life that I’ve suggested from the last lesson.

An activity prompt and related classroom interaction will be introduced in each lesson.  Sometimes students will brainstorm ideas that they will share in the classroom, discuss an activity or experiment, or otherwise share their learning.  Each week will also include a worksheet related to the topic.  Finally, each week I will usually post a link to an additional video showing an interesting real-world application or experiment and a discussion question related to the video.  

Each week I will ask the students to be “noticing” or observing the topics we discussed in the real world and at the beginning of the next class, we’ll check in about that.