Making healthy choices for snacks was taught to 128 sixth graders during the 2022 school year. During this time, the students were taught the importance of fruits in their diet and introduced to foods that would make nutritious snacks. Fruits were used for the most part since several of the students mentioned the “lack of” them in their diets. Fruits presented were, mangos, apricots, grapes, apples, bananas, strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, cranberries, raisins, mandarin oranges, pears, and cherries. They were frozen, fresh, dried, freeze dried, and canned. 93% of the students tried the fruits presented. Some had allergies to certain fruits and of course did not participate. 75% of the students found a new liking to some fruit they had never tried, and 100% of the students tried a new fruit they had never had before.

During the months of January and February 2022, a four-week class on making healthy choices and meal prepping was taught. There were 12 participants.  The curriculum used for the class came from UK and other Universities Extension Programs. During the class participants were taught food safety, proper storage, reheating, resource management, couponing, and making a grocery list. Data collected prior to the classes, showed 44% already meal prepped, 55% did not meal prep, 88% looked at sales paper before choosing to grocery store, 11% did not, 100% made a grocery list before going to store, and nobody prepared all 5 food groups every day of the week.  Data collected after the class showed 100% meal preps more that they did prior to classes, 100% looks at sales paper before going to grocery store, and 20% of the class now prepares meals that include all 5 food groups every day of the week.