Nutrition Program Highlights

CalFresh Healthy Living UCCE San Mateo/San Francisco had an exciting summer full of nutrition, physical activity, and gardening education across the counties. CFHL UCCE spent time teaching youth at Early Childhood Education centers how to Go, Glow, and Grow with the foods they eat. The team also taught parents and other adults resource management and other cooking-related skills using our Plan, Shope, Save, and Cook curriculum.  Educators played important roles at summer schools and camps, of important note is the work at Connect Community Charter. At Connect (pictured here), educators leveraged.

the Teams With Inter-Generational Support (TWIGS) and Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH) curriculums to offer comprehensive educational opportunities to multiple classes of summer school students. 

As the school year begins to ramp up, CFHL UCCE transitions out of the more flexible summer programming to emphasize our strong schools-based approach including direct and indirect education as well as policy, systems, and environmental change efforts across the counties. We are also happy to announce the arrival of Tonya Xie, a part-time educator, as well as the pending start of two additional full-time educators to support our efforts!

On August 21st and 22nd, CalFresh Healthy Living educators, staff from Scherr Nutrition Sciences, UCCE nutrition advisors, and San Francisco State student interns gathered for a training to prepare for a pilot of the Teens CAN Curriculum Training. Teens CAN (Comprehensive Food Literacy in Cooking, Agriculture, and Nutrition) is an inquiry-based curriculum and aims to teach high school students about food literacy. Food literacy encompasses the overlapping knowledge and skills required to maintain a healthy eating pattern. This includes understanding where food comes from and being able to prepare meals that meet nutritional recommendations. The curriculum covers a range of topic areas, including the food supply chain, food environments, nutrition recommendations, meal planning, food safety, and cooking techniques.

Three sites plan to pilot Teens CAN in the fall, including a high school in San Francisco, where San Francisco State undergraduate interns will lead the lessons. This pilot is being supported by CalFresh Healthy Living, UC  and represents an novel partnership between the curriculum authors (Scherr Nutrition Science), a local university (San Francisco State University), CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE, and UCCE nutrition advisors.