Upward Bound Students Study Health and Nutrition

by Dr. Lois Englberger

The first Health and Nutrition class for the Upward Bound (UB) program was taught from June 19 to July 27, 2006, for 25 students. The 6-week course was taught by Dr. Lois Englberger of the Island Food Community of Pohnpei and Angela Parvanta, a student from the University of Hawaii doing an internship with IFCP.

Churchill Edward, Director of Upward Bound, explained, "It is the first time that Health and Nutrition has been taught in our program. There is a growing interest in this and a real need for young people to have more information about their own local island foods."

Topics covered included "Personal Food Choices" and "Nutrients and Use in the Body," from a set of modules developed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) Community Education Training Centre based in Suva, Fiji.

The teachers sought to keep the learning experience interactive by incorporating hands on activities. Such classroom activities included height, weight and waist measurements, reading -and understanding- nutrition labels on imported foods, and playing Pohnpei Banana Bingo (bingo with banana varieties rather than numbers).

"We really wanted the class to be fun for the students," said assistant teacher, Angela Parvanta. "We also wanted to teach them useful things that they could apply to their everyday life. For example, we tried to get the students to think about their food choices. To get them to think beyond their just filling their stomachs with something, but to fill their stomachs with foods that will keep them healthy and strong, especially local food."

Special guests Ms. Meriam Prens and Ms. Welsihter Hagilmai, taught how to make Three-Banana Fruit Salad (using orange-, yellow- and white-fleshed varieties), breadfruit & peanut butter slices, and skipjack fish liver with vegetables. Mr. Richard Croft, another UB instructor, demonstrated his own unique recipe, Banana Ramen Sandwich.

Students also took a field trip to Pohnpei Agriculture's rare banana collection. During the field trip, Adelino Lorens, Chief of Agriculture, provided the tour to Pohnpei Agriculture's Kolonia collection of rare bananas (Karat en Iap, Utin Iap, Karat, Mangat, Ihpali and others). He explained that each variety has a number of distinct identifying characteristics and that the color of the flesh is one of the most important of these.

On the last day, colorful "Let's Go Local" t-shirts were awarded to Leah Tulensru and Jesse Roberts, both of Kosrae, for earning the top scores in the class.

We thank all the students for their enthusiasm and interest in island foods and to Upward Bound for the opportunity of working with them! Thanks are extended to the New Zealand Small Grants for funding support and to SPC CETC for their training modules.