MAESTRANATURA: an innovative nutrition education program
Ministry of Health
Elena Carrano Ministry of Health - Italian National Institute of Health, Francesca Di Giacomo Ministry of Health, Denise Giacomini Ministry of Health, Roberta Masella Italian National Institute of Health, Pasquale Simonetti Ministry of Health, Giuseppe Ruocco Ministry of Health - Secretariat General,
Why is investing in education so important?
- It is necessary to increase citizens awareness of the main factors that determine adequate life styles, firstly, nutrition. It is growing, although still a little explored field, the consideration towards the Food Literacy (FL), as a factor that influences food schemes adopted by the population. FL is defined as a set of skills and knowledge related to food, which, if properly applied, make people responsible to make informed choices about food and nutrition thus contributing to the improvement of their own health.
- Obesity and overweight in Italian children affect 30-40% of the population: alarming, and
Enough to classify Italian children as the worst In Europe.
- Educational programs that aim at transferring to primary and first level secondary school students the knowledge about food and nutrition have become more necessary than ever.
- It should be a prerogative of a public health institute to implement the food literacy of the young population and bet on prevention as a primary weapon to lower the costs of the health care.
- School appears as the most eligible setting to implement strategies to improve students’ diets and food choices and can really play a pivotal role in promoting health.
What differentiates MaestraNatura from other nutrition education programs?
- The real effectiveness of school-based educational programs is quite equivocal till now; more still needs to be done to reach the full potential of food and nutrition education in schools.
- New paradigms are needed that go beyond classroom-based transmission of basic and generic nutrition information, to onesth at promote hands-on learning and skill development, opportunities to deal with food, and practice in real life settings to favor the transfer of the oretical concepts of nutritional guidelines in to the real context of the daily diet.
- MaestraNatura is an innovative education program implemented by Istituto Superiore di Sanità (the National Institute of Health in Italy) together with Ministry of Health and tested since 2012 in six Italian regions by involving 580 schools, 630 teachers and about 20000 students aged 6-13.
- The final objective is to develop in children the awareness of the importance of having a
Balanced relationship with food, a proper nutrition and a healthy life style together with the ability of transferring in areal context the theoretical principles contained in nutrition guidelines.
- The working hypothesis is that only through a 360°C comprehensive approach to food it can be allowed a deeper knowledge of the nutritional principles, indispensable to obtain a complete and lasting adhesion to adequate dietary habits. The teaching method is addressed to achieve and retain food-related basic concepts of chemistry, physics, biology, biochemistry and physiology that have to be consolidated by active participation of students to practical and experimental activities.
- Concomitant involvement of parents, and family as a whole, in the didactical path is required
- MaestraNatura program is based on a systemic approach to complex problems having as primary objective to find connection with similar situations in different contexts. This can be obtained by answering three very simple questions: Where is it from? What is it for? How does it work? This may allow creating a knowledge network by defining crucial issues that lead to the comprehension of basic scientific concepts. It is then possible to go ahead deepening the own characteristics of every system through a progressive and active learning process that takes advantages of experimental laboratories, games, and cooking recipes to be carried out at school and at home, respectively.
- The MaestraNatura program is composed by didactical contents that taken together represent a complete teaching plan strictly connected to the different science programs specifically addressed to each class. The didactical contents are distribute gradually along a time period long enough (8 years) to allows a progressive development of the scientific issues by adapting the level of deepening to the age of children.
- The didactical contents, as well as additional information, experiments, and recipes are provided through a web platform (www.maestranatura.org), accessible for teachers, students and parents; the web platform is structured to become a real Learning ManagementSystem (LMS).
- The choice to use an IT tools to disseminate contents allowed reduced costs, real-time updates, and sharing experience.
Contents of MaestraNatura’s platform
Class V of primary school
“Why do we have to eat?”
Class II of secondary school
“We are what we eat”
Objectives
- understand the difference between food and nutrients
- understand the difference between the energy function and other nutrient functions
- learn to classify foods in different groups
- acquire the principles of a varieddiet
- understand the difference between food and nutrients
- learn to read a nutrition label
- learn and to estimate the nutritional content of afood even without reading its label
- learn to balance a weekly menu while maintaining variety in food and adequate, quantities and frequencies of consumption
Knowledge
- recognize macronutrients and micronutrients
- know the different sources of
energy: simple sugars, starch, fats, proteins
- know the different sources of
proteins and fats: animals and vegetables
- know the main water functions, the division of food into groups and the characteristics of the different groups
- recognize macronutrients and micronutrients
- know the different sources of
energy: simple sugars, starch,fats,proteins
- know the different types of
fat: saturated and unsaturated
- know the different types of proteins: animal and vegetable/ essential amino acids
- know water function and micronutrient function
- know the food groups and the frequencies of consumption of the different groups
Skills
Learning to eat inavaried way.
- Be aware of the importance of healthy and varied nutrition.
- Be aware that nutrition can be different based on different life styles and different nutritional needs.
- Know how to combine foods
with each other by balancing meals in order to maintain adequate varieties, quantities and frequencies of daily and weekly consumption
Activities on the platform
2interactive games
1lesson
1verification test recipes
habits and life styles questionnaires
3interactive games
3lesson
3verification tests recipes
habits and life styles questionnaires
Duration
10hours
14hours
Necessarytools
The games and tests must be carried out individually on PC
The games and tests must be carried out individually onPC
Prerequisites
- Knowledge of percentage calculation
- Basics of food technology (production of milkandits derivatives; productionof bread, pasta, cake, biscuits; preservationsystems)
MAESTRANATURA: an innovative nutrition education program
Ministry of Health
Elena Carrano Ministry of Health - Italian National Institute of Health, Francesca Di Giacomo Ministry of Health, Denise Giacomini Ministry of Health, Roberta Masella Italian National Institute of Health, Pasquale Simonetti Ministry of Health, Giuseppe Ruocco Ministry of Health - Secretariat General,
Why is investing in education so important?
- It is necessary to increase citizens awareness of the main factors that determine adequate life styles, firstly, nutrition. It is growing, although still a little explored field, the consideration towards the Food Literacy (FL), as a factor that influences food schemes adopted by the population. FL is defined as a set of skills and knowledge related to food, which, if properly applied, make people responsible to make informed choices about food and nutrition thus contributing to the improvement of their own health.
- Obesity and overweight in Italian children affect 30-40% of the population: alarming, and
Enough to classify Italian children as the worst In Europe.
- Educational programs that aim at transferring to primary and first level secondary school students the knowledge about food and nutrition have become more necessary than ever.
- It should be a prerogative of a public health institute to implement the food literacy of the young population and bet on prevention as a primary weapon to lower the costs of the health care.
- School appears as the most eligible setting to implement strategies to improve students’ diets and food choices and can really play a pivotal role in promoting health.
What differentiates MaestraNatura from other nutrition education programs?
- The real effectiveness of school-based educational programs is quite equivocal till now; more still needs to be done to reach the full potential of food and nutrition education in schools.
- New paradigms are needed that go beyond classroom-based transmission of basic and generic nutrition information, to onesth at promote hands-on learning and skill development, opportunities to deal with food, and practice in real life settings to favor the transfer of the oretical concepts of nutritional guidelines in to the real context of the daily diet.
- MaestraNatura is an innovative education program implemented by Istituto Superiore di Sanità (the National Institute of Health in Italy) together with Ministry of Health and tested since 2012 in six Italian regions by involving 580 schools, 630 teachers and about 20000 students aged 6-13.
- The final objective is to develop in children the awareness of the importance of having a
Balanced relationship with food, a proper nutrition and a healthy life style together with the ability of transferring in areal context the theoretical principles contained in nutrition guidelines.
- The working hypothesis is that only through a 360°C comprehensive approach to food it can be allowed a deeper knowledge of the nutritional principles, indispensable to obtain a complete and lasting adhesion to adequate dietary habits. The teaching method is addressed to achieve and retain food-related basic concepts of chemistry, physics, biology, biochemistry and physiology that have to be consolidated by active participation of students to practical and experimental activities.
- Concomitant involvement of parents, and family as a whole, in the didactical path is required
- MaestraNatura program is based on a systemic approach to complex problems having as primary objective to find connection with similar situations in different contexts. This can be obtained by answering three very simple questions: Where is it from? What is it for? How does it work? This may allow creating a knowledge network by defining crucial issues that lead to the comprehension of basic scientific concepts. It is then possible to go ahead deepening the own characteristics of every system through a progressive and active learning process that takes advantages of experimental laboratories, games, and cooking recipes to be carried out at school and at home, respectively.
- The MaestraNatura program is composed by didactical contents that taken together represent a complete teaching plan strictly connected to the different science programs specifically addressed to each class. The didactical contents are distribute gradually along a time period long enough (8 years) to allows a progressive development of the scientific issues by adapting the level of deepening to the age of children.
- The didactical contents, as well as additional information, experiments, and recipes are provided through a web platform (www.maestranatura.org), accessible for teachers, students and parents; the web platform is structured to become a real Learning ManagementSystem (LMS).
- The choice to use an IT tools to disseminate contents allowed reduced costs, real-time updates, and sharing experience.
Contents of MaestraNatura’s platform
Class V of primary school
“Why do we have to eat?”
Class II of secondary school
“We are what we eat”
Objectives
- understand the difference between food and nutrients
- understand the difference between the energy function and other nutrient functions
- learn to classify foods in different groups
- acquire the principles of a varieddiet
- understand the difference between food and nutrients
- learn to read a nutrition label
- learn and to estimate the nutritional content of afood even without reading its label
- learn to balance a weekly menu while maintaining variety in food and adequate, quantities and frequencies of consumption
Knowledge
- recognize macronutrients and micronutrients
- know the different sources of
energy: simple sugars, starch, fats, proteins
- know the different sources of
proteins and fats: animals and vegetables
- know the main water functions, the division of food into groups and the characteristics of the different groups
- recognize macronutrients and micronutrients
- know the different sources of
energy: simple sugars, starch,fats,proteins
- know the different types of
fat: saturated and unsaturated
- know the different types of proteins: animal and vegetable/ essential amino acids
- know water function and micronutrient function
- know the food groups and the frequencies of consumption of the different groups
Skills
Learning to eat inavaried way.
- Be aware of the importance of healthy and varied nutrition.
- Be aware that nutrition can be different based on different life styles and different nutritional needs.
- Know how to combine foods
with each other by balancing meals in order to maintain adequate varieties, quantities and frequencies of daily and weekly consumption
Activities on the platform
2interactive games
1lesson
1verification test recipes
habits and life styles questionnaires
3interactive games
3lesson
3verification tests recipes
habits and life styles questionnaires
Duration
10hours
14hours
Necessarytools
The games and tests must be carried out individually on PC
The games and tests must be carried out individually onPC
Prerequisites
- Knowledge of percentage calculation
- Basics of food technology (production of milkandits derivatives; productionof bread, pasta, cake, biscuits; preservationsystems)
- Knowledge of the digestive process