Courier News Looks at Hungry Red Planet in the Classroom

By Chris Donahue

May 1, 2003 — Martians might someday save some earthlings from obesity if an interactive nutrition program being tested in local schools is successful.

Fifth-grade students at Smalley School in bound Brook and sixth-graders at William Annin Middle School in Bernards are participating in Hungry Red Planet — a pilot program created by Health Media Lab, said Gil Roeder, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C. based company. They are the only schools from New Jersey using the program.

Designed for fifth through ninth grades, Hungry Red Planet requires students to make decisions and allocate resources to meet the nutritional needs of a colony of space explorers on Mars, Roeder said. They must grow food and create balanced meals for the colony.

The curriculum combines a computer program with classroom materials to help students learn decision-making skills for lifelong healthy habits, Roeder said. It meets federal and state curriculum standards and guidelines for teaching nutrition, he said.

“It seems like the kids have more knowledge about how to read a label and what foods are better to eat,” said Lori Thompson, one of the eight health and physical education teacher at William Annin.

Greg Mott, a health and physical education teacher at Smalley, said it also helps teach math and reading skills.

“The kids just thrive on this game,” Mott said. “They like the visual aspect of the game. They learn a lot more than what I teach them because they pick it up lot quicker.”

Michael Kasha, 12, of Bound Brook said he wouldn’t mind taking more computer-based classes.

“In the future, I wish all the classes were on computer. Then you could stay home and learn on the computer,” Michael said.

Said Thompson: “You need to incorporate technology into your classroom because of the time we live in.”

Two of Thompson’s sixth-grade classes have completed the game, and another is working on it. The seven other teachers are learning how to use the game for their classes, she said.

Hungry Red Planet, which is being offered free to Smalley and William Annin, took about two years to develop and was introduced nationwide last October, Roeder said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 9 million children in the United States between the ages of 6 to 19 are overweight, Roeder said. In New Jersey, a 2001 survey of high-school students described themselves as “slightly” or “very” overweight, he said.

Reprinted from the Courier News