Child obesity has become a national concern. Obesity in children ages 6-17 has more than doubled in the past 30 years. Only 20% of children today consume the recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables. This trend is even more pronounced in minority populations. Past studies have reported that a horticulture-based curriculum, including gardening, can improve children's attitudes toward eating fruits and vegetables. To investigate whether children of a minority population can benefit from gardening supplemented with a curriculum on nutrition, research was conducted with elementary schools in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas (Hidalgo County). Elementary school teachers participating in this research agreed to have school gardens and complete all activities in a curriculum on nutrition provided to them through the Texas Extension Service. One hundred forty one children in the participating schools completed a pre- and posttest evaluating their attitudes and snack preferences toward fruits and vegetables and their knowledge before and after gardening supplemented with information on nutrition. Statistically significant differences were detected between pre- and posttest scores for all three variables. After comparing pre-and posttest scores, it was concluded that gardening with supplemental instruction, had a positive effect on all three variables including students attitudes and snack preferences toward fruits and vegetables and their knowledge of nutrition.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Glasgow, 2007. / Ph.D. thesis submitted to the Department of Educational Studies, University of Glasgow, 2007. Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 196-201).

No description available.

In this research project, the question of why some younger children appear to have better motor skills than older children is investigated. The hypothesis proposed is that children involved in physical activities after school or in the evenings have better motor skills at younger ages than children who are not involved in physical activities outside of school. Young children have very varied levels of motor skills competency that have developed due to living in different environments and having varied opportunity to be physically active. These differences are a result of factors like socioeconomic status, parental influence, climate, culture, etc.1 Sports and physical activities are usually executed in team settings, allowing children to develop important social skills like team work, leadership, sportsmanship, and responsibility among other ethical skills.2 But what if in addition to these numerous benefits, physical activity throughout childhood also offered an improvement in the rate of development of motor skills? One hundred and thirty-five students in grades K-5 participated in a program looking at perception, cognition and motor skills. There were no exclusion criteria for the study and all children were invited to participate.  A total of 95% of the kids participated in the study. This study focuses on a portion of a larger study that was completed prior to the start of the program. Children’s motor skills were evaluated with a standardized measure Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOT-2). Three sections of the (BOT-2) were implemented: running speed and agility, balance, and upper limb coordination. The scores were analyzed along with self-reported surveys on the levels of physical activity of the children. The results showed evidence to support an association between the amount of physical activity outside of school, either after or in the evenings, r = .621, p = .001. An association was also seen between the amount of time spent in physical activity after school/evenings and running speed and agility scores, r = 0.295 and 0.269 p=.001. This work will be useful in understanding the relationship between children’s participation in physical activity after school and motor skill development rate. The information gathered from this research can be used to promote and support the increase of physical activity time that is available to students during school. Allowing children to have more experiences and opportunities of physical activity at school can help minimize any disadvantage in the rate of motor skills development that children who are not physically active at home may have.

No description available.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of 10 minutes of daily exposure for 10 weeks to a Chinese Music Curriculum and its effect on generating positive cultural attitudes towards the Chinese people, improving tonal discrimination skills, singing accuracy of tonal patterns, and accuracy of singing Chinese lyrics for third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students, compared to a comparison group not receiving the Chinese Music Curriculum. In an elementary school in Miami-Dade County, Florida, 6 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade classes were chosen and randomly assigned to either an intervention or a comparison group. A Chinese Music Curriculum was developed for the intervention group and implemented by classroom teachers. Meanwhile, the comparison group received normal academic instruction and a weekly music class by a music specialist. Pre- and post-tests were administered to both the intervention and comparison groups: (1) Children's Attitudes toward Chinese (CATC), (2) Intermediate Measures of Music Audiation-Tonal (IMMA, Gordon, 1982), and (3) Tonal Pattern Performance Measure (TPPM). The Chinese Song Performance Measure (CSPM) was administered to the intervention group only in order to measure students' abilities for accurately singing the Chinese lyrics of a simple Chinese song, "Little Rat." Data were subjected to a mixed Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) statistical analysis, item analysis, and Pearson Product-Moment correlation. The results demonstrated that the CATC survey was a reliable and valid measure to assess children's attitudes toward Chinese people. The overall effect of the Chinese Music Curriculum was significant in combination of the three outcome measures: CATC, IMMA, and TPPM. The follow-up individual examination revealed that children's attitudes toward Chinese people and tonal pattern singing accuracy were significantly improved, but tonal discrimination skills did not improve. Grade was found to influence children's singing accuracy of tonal patterns with fifth graders outperforming the third and fourth graders. All participants in the intervention group were able to sing a Chinese song with over 70% accuracy of the Chinese lyrics.