Recorded presentation

Armando Valdez, PhD, PRISM (Pacific Research Institute for Social Marketing), 201 San Antonio Circle, Suite 152, Mountain View, CA 94040, 650 917-6600, avaldez@aol.com

This presentation describes the development and evaluation of an innovative interactive, multimedia nutrition education curriculum designed to increase the presence of nutrition subject matter in elementary schools. The curriculum, Nutrition Jam, was designed as a CD-ROM containing 50 interactive, multimedia lessons covering four subjects—science, math, language arts and social studies— that can readily be integrated into the regular fourth grade curriculum. The curriculum includes Internet lessons in which student conduct research online, interactive lessons accessed from a CD-ROM, and traditional worksheet-based lessons that do not require computer use. Each lesson has an embedded nutrition theme and meets national subject-matter standards for fourth grade. The curriculum includes science experiments, games, cooking projects, reading and writing activities, a three-act play, and hands-on projects. The CD-ROM also contains an interactive curriculum guide that allows teachers to scan lessons on-screen, view student worksheets and related instructional materials, and print lesson plans and worksheets for lessons they wish to use. The curriculum was evaluated using a pre-test/post-test, control group design to determine the extent to which this nutrition education curriculum increases students’ nutritional knowledge and improves the food choices of students toward a healthier diet. The study employed six treatment and two control classrooms with a sample of 222 students in eight fourth-grade classrooms at six different schools. Results indicate that student nutritional knowledge increased significantly between pre- and post-test periods on several subjects. Students also indicated highly significant behavioral intent to reduce their consumption of soft drinks.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to (
• undertand the interactive technology used to develop this nutrition education resource, (
• describe the processes used to develop interactive lessons for students, and (
• recognize the efficacy of well-designed interactive media as a learning resource in nutrition education.

Keywords: Interactive Communication, Nutrition

Related Web page: none

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

Recorded presentation