Sustainable Schools Teaching Resource: Primary
Energy Boost Key Stage 2
Focus: Science, Design and technology and PSHE
(potential for Citizenship)
About this unit
In this unit pupils will explore how we need energy to help us grow, exercise, think and even sleep. The focus is for pupils
to understand how humans obtain their energy. Pupils will explore the importance of a balanced diet in terms of providing
them with energy.
Pupils will also learn how to balance the energy that is found in different foods, so that they get just the right amount of
energy and all the nutrients they need for health. They will explore the importance of water as part of a healthy diet and
the impact that has on sustainable systems.
This unit is aimed at the lower end of Key Stage 2 and could also be suitable for Key Stage 1.
2 SUSTAINABLE SCHOOLS TEACHER RESOURCE PACK: PRIMARY
Intended outcomes
Key resources
By the end of this unit pupils will:
Websites
Food Standards Agency:
www.eatwell.gov.uk
• understand the connections between the production of food and
the energy food provides
• understand that their own bodies need energy
• appreciate the importance of a balanced diet for producing energy
in their bodies
• know the various forms of energy they use at home
• recognise that food can affect abilities
• appreciate the importance of water as part of energy creation
• evaluate the things they have learnt
• share information about health with other people
• understand that health has a role in sustainable issues.
BBC Schools:
www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/schools/4_11/uptoyou/healthy/
foodfitness.shtml
Environment Agency:
www.environment-agency.gov.uk/fun/371606/?version=1&lang=e
Healthy Schools:
www.healthyschools.gov.uk
ENERGY BOOST KEY STAGE 2 3
Curriculum links
Geography
This unit gives pupils the opportunity to:
Science
This unit gives pupils the opportunity to:
• develop geographical enquiry and skills: to ask geographical
questions (1a)
• collect and record evidence (1b)
• analyse evidence and draw conclusions (1c) and to
communicate (1e)
• use appropriate geographical vocabulary (2a)
• use secondary sources of information (2d)
• use ICT in geographical investigations (2f) and make decisions (2g)
• recognise some physical and human processes and explain how
these can cause changes in places and environments (4b)
• recognise how people can improve the environment or damage it
and how decisions about places and environments affect the future
quality of people’s lives (5a)
• recognise how and why people may seek to manage environments
sustainably and to identify opportunities for their own involvement (5b).
• learn about the need for food for activity and growth (Sc2 2b)
• about the importance of exercise for good health (Sc2 2h).
Breadth of study
• use appropriate scientific language and terms to explain the
behaviour of living things, materials and processes (2a).
4 SUSTAINABLE SCHOOLS TEACHER RESOURCE PACK: PRIMARY
1. WHAT IS ENERGY?
Learning objectives
Possible teaching activities
Learning outcomes
Pupils should learn:
• to relate energy to their
personal health.
Ask pupils how they feel when they are hungry. Do they feel as
though they lack energy?
Pupils:
• make the connection
between food and energy
and realise what food
enables them to do.
On a chart define what it feels like if you have energy versus what
it feels like if you don’t have energy.
Are there times in the day when you feel that you have more energy?
They should write a few sentences to say why they need energy.
This could be quite personal i.e. I need energy to walk to school,
I need energy to look after my baby sister.
How do you create energy?
Eating regularly helps to create energy. Ask pupils to discuss how
many meals they need a day.
Are three or four meals a day better than one big meal – record
their answers.
Ask pupils to draw a picture or to write a description of their
favourite meal – what are the different things it contains – meat,
vegetable, or breakfast cereal and fruit?
Points to note
ENERGY BOOST KEY STAGE 2 5
2. DOES ALL FOOD CREATE ENERGY?
Learning objectives
Possible teaching activities
Learning outcomes
Points to note
Pupils should learn:
Explain that we need energy to help us move, grow, think and
even sleep. Some foods are high in energy, some low so we need
to make sure we get a good balance.
Pupils:
• calculate what they need
to eat to provide the right
amount of energy for
their bodies.
Resources:
For information on Food Partnerships
– ‘practical food education in the
primary classroom’, visit
www.foodinschools.org.uk
• that they require certain
types of food to provide
them with energy
• about the link between
nutrition and energy.
Explain to the pupils that good diets have plenty of energy from a
wide variety of different sources – some fats, some simple sugars
and lots of complex starchy carbohydrates. Protein that is not
used up for growth and repair is usually turned into energy for the
body to use.
Explain that dietary energy is commonly expressed using
kilocalories or kcals. You can look at a nutritional label to find out
how many kilocalories a food contains. Children aged 7-10 years
need on average an estimated 1970 kilocalories a day for boys
and 1740 kilocalories for girls.
Devise an activity sheet with a column showing 2000 calories.
The children are then given a selection of foods each with a
kilocalorie value. There should be enough foods here so the
children can make a choice as to the ones they would prefer.
The children need to fill in the column to achieve a full energy
quota for themselves for one day.
Another way of doing this activity is to draw around two of their
classmates to produce life-size outlines. These can then be
divided like the column, and filled in and illustrated with sections
showing food and their calorie values to create a display of the
energy needs of a girl and boy of their age. These life-size energy
kids could be annotated to show how the energy is used: for
growing, for concentrating at school, for playing and having fun,
for sports, for sleeping – for life.
OR
Visit www.eatwell.gov.uk/info/games and select some of the
quizzes and games to get pupils to explore what they know and
to learn at the same time.
For more healthy eating, cooking and
food skills resources visit,
www.foodafactoflife.org.uk, The British
Nutrition Foundation’s site for teachers.
The Food Standards Agency website
for schools, www.food.gov.uk/
healthiereating/nutritionschools
For ideas about growing fruit and
vegetables in the school grounds visit,
www.teachernet.gov.uk/growingschools
6 SUSTAINABLE SCHOOLS TEACHER RESOURCE PACK: PRIMARY
3. SPORT AND ENERGY
Learning objectives
Pupils should learn:
• that energy is essential for
them to stay healthy
• that what they eat can affect
their abilities.
Possible teaching activities
Ask pupils how many of them like to do any physical exercise,
football, dance, running around at playtime. Do any of them walk
to school?
They know that they need energy to do this and that a healthy
diet might help.
Play the animation:
www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/schools/4_11/uptoyou/healthy
/footballfood.shtml
Then look at food and fitness:
www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/schools/4_11/uptoyou/healthy
/foodfitness.shtml – play the quiz at the end.
OR
Choose information from the following website pages:
www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/foodforsport/football/fafood
www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/foodforsport/sportnexercise
Ask pupils to look at foods to help provide them with good
energy for exercise.
What happens if you don’t do any exercise? Where does that extra
energy go?
Ask pupils to make a list of the foods they should eat to make
them better at sport, Then ask them to write a list that will make
them slower at sport.
Learning outcomes
Pupils:
• understand that different
foods can affect what
they do
• understand that lots of things
are related to their diet.
Points to note
ENERGY BOOST KEY STAGE 2 7
4. WATER AND ENERGY
Learning objectives
Possible teaching activities
Learning outcomes
Points to note
Pupils should learn:
Tell pupils that 70 per cent of the body is made up of water.
We should drink between 8-10 cups of water a day. More when
we exercise or in hot weather.
Pupils:
Resources
Environment Agency:
www.environment-agency.gov.uk/
subjects/waterres/?lang=_e
• that we need water to create
energy as well as food
• that water needs to be
looked after
• that preserving water is
about exploring ways to
make it sustainable.
How much water do they drink?
If they don’t drink water – what might happen?
People that don’t get enough fluids dehydrate and the body finds
it difficult to produce energy.
Water is very important – where do we get water from?
Does everyone have a right to water? How important is it that we
look after water where we live?
Use the information and quizzes from the Environment Agency
to look at water in the UK, available at www.environment
agency.gov.uk/fun/371606/?version=1&lang=_e
OR
Ask pupils to write down all the different fluids they drink in a day
– is any of it actually water? Explain that all fluids have water.
But are all fluids healthy?
Look at the ingredients in drinks to investigate how healthy they are.
• understand some of the
importance of water
• understand that they need
to look after water in a
sustainable way.
8 SUSTAINABLE SCHOOLS TEACHER RESOURCE PACK: PRIMARY
5. MAKING CHANGES
Learning objectives
Possible teaching activities
Learning outcomes
Pupils should learn:
Ask pupils to review everything they have learnt.
Pupils:
• to evaluate what they
have learnt
• to prioritise issues
• to communicate their
findings with others.
Working in groups, ask them to decide what they think are the
most important things?
• understand how issues
of food and energy
affect them
• understand how to use the
information they have learnt.
Do they think that there are key messages that everyone should
know? are there key messages that young people like themselves
should know?
Ask pupils to design an information poster that will tell other
young people about food and energy. Decide where would be the
best place to display the posters to catch everyone’s attention.
Prepare an assembly to tell the rest of the school what they
have learnt.
Prepare a motion for their school council that will raise the issue
of an awareness campaign about health and the things that they
have learnt.
Extension
Pupils could create a recipe for a healthy snack and make it in
class e.g. fruit salad, vegetable kebabs or a sandwich.
Points to note