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Family table: Human Body & Nutrition

All four rungs side by side. A younger child and an older one can do the same topic together, each at their own level.

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Step	Classes 1–3	Classes 4–7	Classes 8–10	Classes 11–12
Activity	Our Senses and Our Body	What Do Different Foods Give Us?	Digestion – The Journey of Food	Investigating a Physiological or Nutritional Question
Safety	Check for allergies before any tasting. Use only ordinary food you would serve at a meal, never cleaning products, medicines or unknown things. One clean spoon per child; do not share. Show the child how to waft a smell towards the nose instead of sniffing hard. If you use a blindfold, the child can take it off at any time.	–	–	Safety and ethics: Gentle exercise only (for example stepping or a slow jog). No exercise trials for anyone with a heart or breathing condition, asthma, an injury, or who feels unwell today. Get consent from each participant (and a parent's consent if under 18); anyone can stop at any time; stop at once if someone feels dizzy, breathless or unwell. No diet changes, fasting, supplements or caffeine as experiments. Record data without names.
What you need	Safe objects with different textures, sounds and colours (cloth, a bell, a leaf, a coloured book) With a grown-up only: ordinary kitchen foods to smell and taste (a slice of lemon, a little jaggery, a pinch of salt, a mint leaf), one clean spoon per child	Pictures or real examples of common foods (rice, roti, dal, milk, curd, egg, fruit, oil, vegetables, sweets) Paper for sorting	Paper, pencil, coloured pens, a reliable labelled diagram (textbook) Optional: a small piece of plain roti or bread; simple model materials (tube, bag, etc.)	Depends on the investigation (pulse measurement, food labels, published nutrition tables, secondary data, etc.)
Notice	How do you know what is around you?	We eat many different kinds of food. Why do we need them?	Food goes into our mouth and waste comes out. What happens in between?	The human body maintains balance through many systems and responds to nutrition and activity.
Guess	Which part of your body helps you see, hear, smell, taste and feel?	Which foods give us energy? Which help us grow? Which keep us healthy?	Where is food broken down? What juices or organs help?	Choose a focused, ethical question (e.g., effect of gentle exercise on heart rate, comparison of nutrient content in local foods using labels, recovery heart rate).
Try	Use each sense one at a time (eyes closed for touch, smell and hearing). Smell by waving the air towards your nose. Taste only what your grown-up gives you.	Sort foods into groups: energy-giving, body-building, protective.	Draw the digestive system and label the main organs. Trace the path of food. Optional: chew a small piece of plain roti for about a minute without swallowing. Does the taste change?	Design a safe, controlled investigation or careful data analysis.
Observe	What information did each sense give you?	Check whether some foods belong to more than one group (milk gives energy and helps us grow).	Research or recall what happens in the mouth, stomach, small intestine and large intestine.	Collect or extract quantitative data and present it clearly.
Explain	Tell someone which sense you used and what you found out.	Explain why a balanced meal needs foods from different groups, and water too.	Describe the journey of food and the role of enzymes and organs in simple terms.	Analyse results in the context of human physiology or nutrition science. Discuss limitations and ethics.
Ask another question	What happens if one sense is not working well? How do people manage?	What happens if someone eats only one type of food for a long time?	What happens if one part of the digestive system is not working properly?	How do your findings relate to health recommendations or further research?

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