Introduction

Many young people eat lunch at school. Many also complain about the food, the decor, the service or the price. This webquest, designed for a group of students in Junior High School, is your chance to give your school cafeteria a complete makeover.

Task 

In this webquest, students will conduct research, brainstorm, investigate and then propose changes, new menus and promotional activities to improve their school cafeteria. The plan that students will prepare in this webquest could be presented to the school principal and cafeteria manager.

Process

1. Before starting, take a look at the Cafeteria Adventure and a The Hip New Cafeteria; Or Not! These are a reminder that a sense of humour is needed.
    

2. Read these articles and documents on school cafeterias, school canteens and school lunches. Each student in your group should read all of the articles and use Section 3.1 Personal Health  Journal to record their impressions/comments on each reading.

   • Linking the Classroom and the Cafeteria (A selection of good ideas)
   • Changing the Scene support material (Improvement Checklist Components 2, 3, 4 and 6)
   • Nutrition is Student's Choice (an interview with a cafeteria company)
   • School Foodservice (Browse this section of their website for ideas)
   • Government serves up successful school breakfast program (A report on school meal menus)
   • Quick, Easy, Nutritious School Lunches from Home (Tips form Canada's Dietitians)
   • Infection Detection Protection in the Cafeteria (a simple checklist using pictures
      

3. Starting with the assigned readings and using a brainstorm process (use Student tool on How to Brainstorm) the students should work as a group to develop a list of potential ways to improve their school cafeteria/canteen. List these ideas under these categories:

   • offering healthy, interesting choices to students
   • encouraging students to select these choices
   • encouraging parents and students to bring healthier, more interesting lunches to schoo
   l finding ways to alternate the rush into the cafeteria
   • making the cafeteria a more interesting place to be
    

   
   Submit a two page report listing your ideas.
    

4. The next phase of this webquest is to investiage your school cafeteria. At least three students from your group are needed; each to do one of the following;
   
   a) conduct an interview with the cafeteria manager to determine

• What is offered on the menus? How are they selected and how are they prepared?
• What are the popular food choices made by students? How to they know what they are?
• Have they ever tried some of the ideas your group has suggested?
• What are their ideas on how to improve the cafeteria?

To prepare for the interview , read Section 3.5 of Personal Health Journal. You will need to follow the steps in that outline. Also read the Evaluation Criteria for Health Interviews. You can also prepare by reading the Handout for School Food Service Staff found in the document Changing the Scene support material. (This handout can be found around the middle of this long PDF document.)

b) Conduct a survey on your school cafeteria and compare these answers to the results of survey done in Newfoundland.

Use the survey questions from the Cafeteria Survey that has been taken from a longer questionnaire used in Newfoundland schools. (You should coordinate with the student doing the interview with the cafeteria manager so that both requests are made at the same time.) Read the Executive Summary and Key Findings of the survey and compare these answers with your survey questions about your school cafeteria to answer these questions:
 

• Does your school offer healthy food choices?
• Is your cafeteria overcrowded?
• Who operates the cafeteria in your school?

Prepare a two page research report comparing and discussing your findings as well as those of the Newfoundland Study. Review the Evaluation Criteria for Research Reports and discuss how these will be applied with your teacher. 

c) Examine the hot and cold meal choices offered in your school cafeteria to see if:
 

• there are attractive, healthy food choices at every meal
• the menu choices offer a balance among the different food groups
• the fat, sugar and salt content is healthy

To do this, list the menu choices available in your cafeteria for one week. Analyze these menus to determine if these choices have a balance among the four food groups. To refresh your memory on food groups, visit Health Canada's Food Guide. Using this Nutrition Analysis Tool select what you think a typical student in your school would choose from these menu choices. Use the Nutrition Analysis Tool to calculate the fat and salt content of these five typical student meals. Compare these calculations to the recommendations in the Canada's Food Guide.

Prepare a Research Report on your findings. Before you prepare this report, review the Evaluation Criteria for Research Reports with your teacher to see what criteria will apply to this webquest.

If your school does not have a cafeteria, you can still do this activity by analyzing the meals available at these Canadian schools
school 1, school 2, school 3, school 4, school 5.
 

5. You will now work as a group to prepare a plan to improve your school cafeteria. Start by reviewing your notes on the assigned readings and your brainstorming session. Then share the findings from your interviews, survey and analysis of the food/meal choices in your cafeteria.
   
   Next, follow the outline in Section 3.7 of your Personal Health Journal. Answer each of the questions in that outline to the best of your ability.
   
   Prepare a five page plan for a cafeteria makeover based on all of this information. That plan could use the ideas you developed together in Step 3 of this webquest, along with other ideas you developed in your investigation of your cafeteria. You could use the three areas for improvement that you used in Step 3.
   
    

6. Prepare a covering letter for your plan and sent it to your school principal and cafeteria manager.
   
   See the suggestions in the Student Tool How to Write a Letter.
    
7. Each student in the group will use Section 3.3 of the Personal Health Journal to assess how well their group worked together.