Workshop Details
The Classroom workshops combine interactive learning with inputs from schools across the route to reinforce positive healthy habits in 6th, 7th and 8th grade students. The really exciting part? We’re building a Wellness Banner as we go through each school. Every student can contribute and every student can see the thoughts from cities across California! It’s positive peer pressure at its best!
Duration: One classroom period for each workshop Audience: 6th, 7th or 8th grade students Purpose: Reinforce the importance of healthy habits in the context of diabetes prevention Cost: FREE! .Part 1. Introductions
- Introductions – Who are we & why are we walking this far?!
- What is diabetes - We ask the students about their current understanding of diabetes and give a brief overview of diabetes based on the American Diabetes Association (ADA) resources
- Visualizing Diabetes Exercise – The class is divided into two groups to represent the 1 in 3 who will get diabetes if current trends continue
- Healthy habits & prevention – We describe the healthy habits that reduce one’s risk of diabetes (based on ADA guidance)
Part 2. Group brainstorming, the main attraction!
- The class is divided into groups of 4-5 students, half will focus on healthy eating and half will focus on staying active
- In these groups, the students generate as many ideas as they can in five minutes on a progression of topics
- First, what do you already do to eat healthy or stay active? (one or the other, depending on the group)
- Second, what makes it difficult to eat healthy or stay active?
- Third, how can we overcome this difficulty and fit healthy choices into our lives?
- The different groups all compete for the team that can come up with the most ideas in each five-minute round to keep the students focused and engaged
- During the group discussions, our team (and the teacher) will go around to the various groups to help facilitate
- Finally, each team will choose a representative and present back the highlights from their third brainstorm
Part 3. Goals & wrap up
- Wellness Banner - Once the students have had a chance to brainstorm together, we unfurl the Wellness Banner with the notes from all of the previous schools
- Personal Goals – At this point, each student determines a specific healthy choice to achieve in the following day and the following week
- Each student writes their goals on three separate 4×6 index cards, one for themselves, one for their teachers, and one for them to attach to the Wellness Banner
- The short timelines (one day and one week goals) help reinforce the learning from the workshops and encourage the students to think in tangible, achievable short-term goals for long-term prevention
- Wrap up and Wellness Guide- We finish off with a brief summary and return to the Visualizing Diabetes Exercise to reinforce that healthy habits are critical to preventing the one-in-three future, and give each student a local Wellness Guide for the area
- The Wellness Guides include area-specific information on local sports leagues, sporting goods stores, and other local businesses and organizations that encourage healthy living
After the workshops
The workshops aren’t just a one-day event. We will stay in touch as the Walk progresses and follow up with regular letters to the classes. Part update and part check-up, the letters share stories from other schools and ask about the different goals that the students had set while we were together. We have invested the time together in the workshops and we are building on that commitment to health by staying connected with the students beyond the workshops. Together we can work to prevent the next generation of potential diabetics and work to improve the one-in-three predictions.