F.I.T. Club is committed to developing an integrated web-based curriculum which utilizes Common Core Standards.  Lesson plans are being developed by Skidmore Education Majors who have been selected for a F.I.T. Club Award.  The Awardees are seniors who have successfully finished their student teaching and have maintained an academic record of excellence at Skidmore College.  They follow a framework for integrated teaching designed by Dr. Kristin Anderson and Dr. Susan Lehr which answers our ‘Essential Questions’ using high quality children’s non-fiction and fiction literature.   Our first Pizza Unit consists of 15 innovative lesson plans designed by our first Awardee during the Spring of 2013.  These Pizza lesson plans are currently being piloted in the classrooms of Skidmore Alumni Master Teachers.  Our intent is to post these lesson plans during the summer of 2014!  The current group of 4 Awardees are working on the next set of Foods, including an expansion of our pizza lessons and introduction of chicken nuggets, scrambled eggs, macaroni and cheese, soda, juice, and milk.

These initial lesson plans will be targeted to Grades K-3 and 4-5, but as our efforts continue will be expanded to older students.  We foresee lesson plans for the upper level students focusing on current events using books, journal articles and pertinent websites.  As we develop recipes with our F.I.T. Club Chef, we will begin the mathematics-based Young Chefs Club.  Finally, once we develop our patient medical encounters and work with our Brown Medicine-Pediatric partners and our F.I.T. Club Personal Trainer, the lesson plans of the Young Doctors Club will begin to take shape.

Because many of our lesson plans are based on high quality children’s literature, we understand this is the primary expense of integrating them into schools.  The lesson plans themselves are free and widely accessible.  We are focusing heavily on Scholastic Books because of their accessibility to teachers and students but are choosing books from other sources as well. Our hope is that connecting community hospitals with their neighboring schools will help fund this endeavor, and in turn, improve the overall health of their communities.

Our primary goal is to develop lesson plans that are innovative, integrative with Common Core Standards, and pertinent to the health of our nation’s youth.  We recognize this will take time, patience, a lot of hard work and collaboration, but hope you stay tuned!