"You are what you eat!" It is one of the oldest cliches ever known to man, but what does it really mean? Until recently, this statement was thought to implicate that your appearance is a reflection of what you eat. Little did we realize how intimate the man vs food relationship really is. Let me explain what i mean. I am sure that you are all aware by now that food is comprised of fats, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. We have been taught that we need to consume these nutrients as part of a well balanced diet. What we haven't been told, perhaps because it hasn't been known until just recently, is that we are also consuming genetic material. No, I am not talking about your everyday dietary proteins that are responsible for building and maintaining lean muscle mass. I am referring to fragments of RNA molecules called microRNA that, for whatever reason, do not metabolize and degrade in our gut. Rather, these microRNA molecules are absorbed directly through our gut walls and invade our bloodstream. I will refrain from boring you with all of the biochemical details, so here is the general idea. When consumed, microRNA has the ability to turn off certain genes and cause all sorts of serious health implications. Let me put try to put it to you in perspective. Every thing that you eat or feed to your children has the ability to influence the expression of their genes. Yes, this is a news flash and it brings forth an entirely new meaning to, "you are what you eat". In other words, if you feed your kids the right foods their genes will more likely function the way they are intended to, but feed them the wrong foods and you start a game of gene demolition derby with potentially critical long term health implications. What Do We Do About It? Basically, we need to be more aware what we put into our bodies. The food that we eat should be food that our bodies have evolved to consume. With nearly everything these days being chemically altered with chemicals, hormones, it can be a daunting task to figure out what is good for us and what is not. However, we can all take fundamental steps to minimize the consumption of processed food. You know the stuff I am talking about? These items normally sit in boxes and vacuum packs on your grocery store shelves and freezers. It is not uncommon to find upwards of 20 to 30 ingredients listed on their packages. Grocery Store Tips -Buy the majority of your food from the perimeter of the grocery store. That is where you will find most of the fresh and wholesome items. -Stay away from the aisles as much as possible. That is where most of the processed goods can be found. -Consume foods that have as few ingredients as possible. For instance, if you eat an avocado, you are eating only an Avocado. If you eat broccoli then you are eating just broccoli. However, drizzle your favorite salad dressing from a bottle you bought from the salad dressing isle and your consuming about 15 different chemical ingredients, many of which I can not even pronounce. But.....Won't Buying Delicious Wholesome Food Break My Bank Account? A wholesome food budget will indeed cost you more than a budget allocated towards processed food. However, I would like you to consider the following: Many of us are interested in investing in houses, cars, as well as various forms of entertainment. However, think about this for a moment.... Wouldn't it be wiser to reallocate some of those funds so that we are able to invest in the future health of our children. Don't we want to watch them become the best that they can be? How This Relates To Grade 3 For the past week, the grade 3's have been exploring various topics in nutrition. As of this week, all students are required to bring wholesome foods to school. Barring any allergies, fruits, vegetables, grains(minimal), meat and dairy products will need to be in your child's lunch on a daily basis. Although a grade will be taken for the quality of their lunch, I am hoping with the support of all of your great parents, that an ideological shift will take place among all of our families. In Conclusion The ability our food has to control our genes should cause us all to rethink what we put into our bodies and what we feed our children. By making smart food choices, we accomplish two things. The first is we enhance our personal well being and secondly, we model these smart food choices in front of our kids with the hope that they will continue the legacy. Ultimately, you are what you eat and I don't know about you, but I am really feeling like some sushi right about now. Grade 3 Newsletter
Please click here to access this week's newsletter. Sources: http://www.academypublish.org/paper/microrna-and-diet-in-disease-prevention-and-treatment
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I was watching the Toyota Grand Prix over the weekend. I am not much of an Indy fan, however, with the Oilers tanking their season, I figured I needed something to help me forget this abysmal hockey season. I was determined to set a change of pace and see what's new at the race track. The entertainment value was spectacular and the result was historic. Takuma Sato became the first Japanese driver to ever win an Indy Race. Okay....perhaps you may be wondering how this news is relevant to a blog page dedicated towards our grade 3 students. Oh, it has 'everything' to do with my grade 3 students! After watching the post race reaction and commentary, I couldn't help but notice many parallels between the athletes and the my little scholars. Allow me to phrase it another way: the experiences that my grade 3's went through in their latest science unit were nearly identical to those of a professional race car driver. Sounds crazy hey? If you find this difficult to rationalize, I have provided some of the post race comments made by Takuma Sato along with his competitors and compared them alongside some classroom moments. "I was really enjoying driving. I didn't want to finish the race because it felt so good." (Takuma Sato) "I love building things Mr. M. Can I take some of the stuff home because I don't want to stop building. (Grade 3 Student) "We as drivers have pushed them extremely hard. We push on each and every one of our race engineers that are with us each and every session." (Sato's team) I too push my grade 3's to the limit. Coincidence?????? I think not! :) " At times it would be easy for them to get down on themselves because of the things surrounding them, but I can't say I've seen them with a negative outlook on anything." (Sato's team) My grade 3's faced countless moments of adversity as they went through the process of building, testing, failing before getting right back up again to decide on how to modify their designs. As difficult as it was at times, they were dedicated towards keeping a positive outlook on things. "I made a mistake at the beginning of the race with Scott Dixon, and I'm sorry about that to him and his crew," (Sato's Competitor) The pinnacle driving point of our science unit was that mistakes will happen..."A LOT"! What matters most is the steps you take to overcome the obstacles. "Unfortunately in the pits I got sent out and made contact with Will Power's car. We had some communication issues as a team, but we're all learning to work together and things happen." (Sato's Competitor) One of the greatest challenges that my grade 3's encountered was learning how to work as a team to accomplish a common task. Sato's competitor related to us, "we're all learning to work together and things happen". This goes to show that regardless of age and/or past success, team work is always in need of improvement as different minds are challenged to work in unison towards a common purpose. "It's been 3 1/2 years to get here, but I always believed that I can win" (Sato) (Apparently last year, Sato was in first place during the final lap twice...and twice he crashed his car in the final lap just as he neared the finish line. As one student stated, right after they shed some tears when their pillared structure collapsed, "Come on guys, let's regroup and focus. We can do this! 'X', get some Popsicle sticks. We need to brace the pillars!" What does this all mean?
The similarities that I outlined are not limited solely to race car drivers. Rather, it spans an all-inclusive spectrum that embodies the likeness of sports, nearly all occupations and even personal relationships. Success and happiness in most areas of life is dependent upon your ability to overcome challenges, work with others and pushing yourself to the limit (aka. old fashion hard work). Ladies and gentlemen, this was far more than just a science unit; it was a lesson about life....and these kids drove the points all the way home in 5th gear! Weekly Newsletter Click here to access the newsletter. I have not had the chance to update this site in the past couple of weeks. Tamyr has been teething and with that, as you all should know, sleep time has been very difficult to come upon. Ah yes, growing pains....gotta love it! But yes, it is a necessary fact of life because it is the first test among many more to come that will help shape him as a person. "No pain, no gain"....and with "teething pain" comes a lot of gain in terms of setting the grounds for initial character development. On Friday, April 12 the grade 3's took part in the annual "Career Day" celebrations. We had lawyers, doctors, detectives, scientists, sheikhs, bakers, teachers, police officers, pilots and construction workers. Amidst all of the fun and excitement that went on that day, I started to think a little bit. Watching the hundreds of students strolling down the hallways of our school dressed up in their cute little outfits and playing make believe, I realized that some of these kids will actually become 'exactly' what they have decided to become on this day. In other words, I was staring at our future doctors, lawyers and police officers in action. On the other hand, other kids will end up changing their minds for whatever reason (some of them changed their mind midday) and things will not work out as planned. That is not a bad thing either because their interests and aspirations will continually evolve in the years to come. Ultimately, however, every single one of the students will share a single common experience. I know what you are probably thinking. What??? Have I gone mad? Am I truly sleep deprived? What common experience could all of these children possibly share from now until the next 20 years and beyond? The common experience that all of these students will share will be the many ups and downs that life will throw at them as they they pursue their goals. No pain, No gain, right??? Yes, but that is only true if you learn from those moments. In the grand scale of things, their success will depend largely upon their environment and the support network that they will receive along the way. This is where you and I come in. Why do I say this? It is because studies have shown that the greater one's support network, the greater the chances of attaining success. The greater the team of supporters that we can assemble for your child, the better the chances that your child will succeed. This is why we are supposed to hold their hand along the way as we teach them patience, perseverance and dedication. They must learn 'how' to grow when experiencing moments of success and 'how' grow when experiencing moments of defeat. I remember in my first year of teaching, one of my grade 5 students was very passionate about dinosaurs. It seemed as though it was all he ever talked about. Although he was only 10 years old, he knew right there and then that he wanted to be a paleontologist one day. Well, yesterday after Friday Prayers, that same student paid me a visit at the school. I was happy to hear that throughout all of these years, dinosaurs were still his favorite topic of discussion and he has continued pursuing his dream. He is currently enrolled in the Paleontology program at the University of Alberta and plans to study dinosaurs for many more years. Without the continual support of his family (not to mention the many trips to Drumheller) the chances that this child would have ventured into the world of paleontology might not have been great. It is like the stories we hear from the parents of the hockey stars who talk about how much time and energy they had to dedicate so that their child's dream of playing professional hockey became a reality. How you choose to support and nurture your child will help determine how far they go in life. Nobody says it will be easy. Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through the experiences of trial and suffering can character be strengthened, ambition be inspired and success achieved. And to think that it all starts with the pangs of teething. Testing Bridges
On Friday, we had a chance to test one of the bridges the grade 3's have been working so diligently on for the past few weeks. The greatest challenge the students had to overcome was the length of their bridges. 2.5 feet is no easy task especially when it needs to support a minimum of 20lbs of weight. The bridge below was able to support an estimated 50lbs and would have held more, but the group requested to keep their bridge intact. |