My internship at CIS

[m7-matsbaxter-blog]

Here’s the final video from the BLUM internship tenure, a summer program for UCSD (University California San Diego) students, which took place at the Earthlab. Gives a good insight into everyday life at the Earthlab while giving different perspectives from key members of Groundworks and others.

[m7-matsbaxter-blog]

Challenges faced

First and foremost, the biggest challenge that Alina and me faced, was trying to teach nutrition to a huge group of 9th grade hyper active teenagers who had lots of other things circulating in their minds other than sitting still and listening to two strangers. It was definately a daunting task, especially when thinking back on one’s own behaviour and state of mind when we where 9th graders. As it turned out, our worries where quite without reason, because, like most of the children at CIS, they were certainly well behaved, all things considered. However, it still was a challenge to keep them interested/entertained and eager to go through the lesson material. Instead of making a traditional presentation, like what we normally do at GNH, it was obvious that we had to involve the students a lot more. Asking them a lot of questions and making them do exercises, like doing the 24-hour diet recall on supertracker, was definately a step in the right direction. After a couple of lessons, and after we had discussed what was good and what could be better, the lessons became much more crisp and had a much better flow to them. Practice makes perfect. Towards the end of the internship period, the lessons became a walk in the park, reasoning that we were so confident in the material, and knowing what to expect and which questions to expect from the students. It has been an extremely interesting and fun experience, and we think all parties involved have learned something from this experience. we certainly have.

[m7-alinatoma-blog]

Approaching the end of our internship period, I think it’s time to reflect upon the learning objectives that we chose in the beginning.

1. How to present on well-being and nutrition topic

Regarding this task we managed to teach basic nutrition lessons to the 9th graders, present the concept of...

[m7-matsbaxter-blog]

Here are some pictures of one of our healthy breakfast session with the first graders, in particular the 1B class. We introduced the 5 food groups that make up my plate, listing examples of food and which food groups they belonged to, but also which foods should considered “anytime” and “sometimes” foods. Of course we had to have funny illustrations to keep it interesting, so obviously we had to have “Mr. Protein” and “Mrs. Fruit” etc., which were characters consisting of different foods belonging to the respective food groups. Subsequently, they had to choose three different foods that belonged to three different food groups, of their choice. Lastly we had prepared proper food for them to taste, giving them examples of what a healthy breakfast could look like. Overall, it was a ton of fun and very well received by the kids and the teachers alike.

[m7-matsbaxter-blog]

Working hard!!

[m7-matsbaxter-blog]

A day at the "office"

Today, tuesday the 10/3-15, Alina and me are at the City campus, located just next to Østerport station. Sitting in the faculty room, with a nice view over østreanlæg park and and the occational sun ray trying to enter the room, we are preparing to teach a 9th grade nutrition lesson at 14:40. However, we have had two lessons already teaching this lesson to two other 9th grades, and are getting quite acustomed to doing it now, and as a result are a lot more confident than when we started.

Additionally, we are putting together a budget for a "healthy breakfast" session we will have with three different 1. graders. The first of these start next week, which include a 20 min presentation to the kids involving examples of foods that are good for the kids to eat in the morning, to get the best start to the day. The last part of the lesson will be for the kids to actually choose three different food items that they actually can eat and try out. A banana popsicle covered with granola, is my absolute favorite out of these. 

That is what we are covering today at least, however, we have about five or six different projects that we are working on at the moment, but they will be explained further in a later post.

Have a nice tuesday!

[m7-matsbaxter-blog]

Getting involved

Hi again everyone.

Due to a school holiday at the Copenhagen International School (CIS) in the second week of the internship, Alina and me had to wait for our third week to get properly introduced and involved in our different projects at CIS.

While attending different meetings, and getting involved in the PE classes with an array of different grades of children, the main project to mention, was getting started prepping three different 9th grade teams to ultimately go to a trip to Skagen in the north of Jutland, Denmark. This is a one week trip, in the beginning of May, where the 9th graders basically get full control over what activities they wanna do, but more importantly for us, what they should eat as well.

The plan is to have 3 lessons with each class, and then 2 additional practical lessons. The first 3 lessons, we will be in full charge of, and we have to design the teaching curriculum, together with doing the actual teaching.

Doing the very first lesson with a bunch of energetic teenagers, was no small task, and we really had to be on the ball, in order to keep their attention. However, we both found this very intriguing, because it forced us to improve and find new ways and strategies to hold their focus on the task at hand. So while, we were quite nervous at first, once you got into it, it was a lot of fun and very interesting.

At the moment, we are busy designing the second lesson, consisting mainly about food labeling and 24 hour diet recall, while trying our utmost to keep it interesting for the kids.

Stay tuned, and have a good tuesday!

[m7-matsbaxter-blog]

Welcome to my internship at CIS

Hi. My name is Mats, I’m 26 years old, and currently doing an internship at Copenhagen International School as part of my Global nutrition and health education. Joining me in this internship is Alina, a fellow GNH student, and we will be sharing this internship experience together for the duration of the 2 months.

Our responsibilities during our tenure at CIS, will be to cooperate with the different teacher teams from different grade levels, in planning the PE lessons that will be held within the 2 month timespan. We will observe, aid in and even teach ourselves during this period. Giving nutritional inputs to this process will be a major part of our contributions. Additionally, we will be aiding in the coordination of a conference on student well being that will be held at CIS, bringing a myriad of international school representatives from around the world to Copenhagen.

Before coming to CIS, my expectations regarding the school were quite high, since I knew that it was a rather prestigious and rather expensive school to attend. Also, one of my cousins had worked there as a teacher a couple of years prior and had praised it highly. Subsequently, meeting with my internship supervisor, and getting shown around the school prior to the start of the internship, I was certainly not disappointed. The school has an array of facilities that I could only have dreamed of, when I was a “folkeskole” student, growing up in the Danish school system. Regarding the PE (Physical education) lessons in particular, the school sports hall that was available for the students was absolutely superb. In addition, I learned that each teacher working at CIS only has one subject that they teach. This is a completely different to the Danish school system, where each teacher has to have a minimum of 3 subjects that they can teach. As a result each teacher at CIS is an expert in their respective subject, and it certainly shows.