Husky Reads: Low literacy and limited access to healthy foods is particularly acute in urban youth living in poverty. This course provides undergraduate students with the opportunity to deliver basic nutrition information and promote literacy to preschoolers. Students work in pairs or in small teams, using prepared lesson plans that allow the UConn students to focus on literacy activities, while
at the same time, acquiring classroom management skills. In addition, students benefit from experiential learning in community settings that increases their cultural competence with the groups served. Husku Nutrition I: This course emphasizes community service, with learning laboratory and site lesson plan development all focused on enhancing the applied, community experience. The goal of this course is to increase a students’ understanding of nutrition and health in underserved communities, gain skills in conveying healthy nutrition messages to families, and solidify the students’ cultural competence. At the community site, students interact with parents or caregivers and their children, engaging them and delivering brief, healthy nutrition messages when the parents and caregivers come to pick up their children. have little understanding of the relationship between the food they eat and their health. Some children also have limited experience with food preparation: from basic ingredients and food choices to food preparation and skills needed to translate nutrition knowledge into healthful eating. These gaps in knowledge and experience are particularly acute for urban youth living in poverty. This course provides an opportunity for students to develop skills in presenting health and nutrition facts and skills to groups of inner-city, K-6th grade students in after-school programs. Teaching in teams and using structured lesson plans, UConn students acquire basic teaching and classroom management skills, master and apply nutrition and health education content in a community setting, and increase their cultural competence with the groups served. Healthy Aging: A lecture-and-lab-based, service-learning course, where students master nutrition theory and apply it by providing nutrition education to older adults in the community. Students develop an understanding of the role nutrition plays in prevention or progression of the chronic diseases of old age, and learn how to synthesize nutrition information into culturally-sensitive, educational lessons and messaging. Students gain knowledge of the broader cultural, social and economic barriers that elders face in maintaining a healthy diet. Husky Sport: Husky Sport students and staff work to positively engage with members of the Hartford, CT and UConn communities through the development of right relationships with youth, their adult family members, college students, and community organization collaborators. Through efforts in schools, after school and weekend programs, Husky Sport aims to be a continuous part of the lives of children and families in Hartford’s North End.
