Use the science to investigate a real source, explain the evidence, and communicate a defensible conclusion. The guide supplies the actual reading, data, task, and chosen level before the unit begins.
| Strand | Required evidence |
|---|---|
| History, Reading, Writing | Use an approved source in context and a student-authored response. Separate the original evidence from later explanations; do not force a single-hero story. |
| Geography and ethics | Include location, social context, or ethical trade-offs where they genuinely support the scientific question. |
| Elective extensions | Choose additional depth in data, technology, economics, or art. Extensions do not replace the core work. |
| Quantitative science | Use the unit's mathematical lane at the agreed level. Supply units, denominators, and model conditions; required science is assessed as science. |
Integration is reported separately and cannot lower the science grade or block a science demonstration pass. Science and practical criteria determine that pass.
Use the same approved task in both formats. The web guide explains the source, data, assumptions, student work, and evidence checklist; this packet is its portable summary, not a different assignment.
Use the web guide's approved unit assignment.
| Unit | Health & Nutrition big idea | Integration anchor |
|---|---|---|
| 01 Body Systems & Wellness | The body’s major systems work together, and “wellness” is a whole-person baseline you can measure as data. | William Harvey mapping the circulation of blood in 1628, overturning 1,400 years of Galen — pair with a popular-science reading and write how one careful observation toppled ancient authority. |
| 02 Nutrients & the Science of Food | Food supplies macronutrients and micronutrients — energy and building blocks — and type and amount matter, not the category. | The discovery of vitamins — Eijkman’s beriberi hens and Funk naming the “vital amine” — argue from the evidence why treating carbs or fats as a “bad category” is a mistake. |
| 03 Digestion, Metabolism & Energy | The body breaks food down and extracts energy; a calorie is simply a unit of the energy the body needs. | Wilbur Atwater building the first calorimeter to measure food energy — students run the neutral energy-balance arithmetic, energy in versus energy out, as science, never as a diet prescription. |
| 04 Building a Healthy Diet | A balanced diet is built from evidence — labels, serving sizes, and guidelines — not fads or “detox” claims. | The story of the nutrition-label mandate and dietary guidelines; students analyze real labels and debunk a “detox” claim using how the liver and kidneys actually clear the body. |
| 05 Physical Fitness & Exercise Science | Study measurable function, not appearance. | Use an approved exercise-physiology source and supplied recovery data or a measurement model; explain limits without requiring personal exercise or body records. |
| 06 Mental Health & Stress | Understand stress and sleep without diagnosing the learner. | Read an approved stress-science source and analyze fictional or de-identified data. Personal tracking is optional and private. |
| 07 Disease, Immunity & Prevention | Distinguish nutritional deficiency, infection and adaptive immunity. | Compare Lind's small historical study with the assigned mechanism cases; sources and design limits matter. |
| 08 Health Decisions & Media | Health claims in media must be judged on evidence — and correlation is not causation. | A modern nutrition-headline case study — students separate correlation from causation, weigh supplements against whole food, and write a critical review of a real health claim. |
Scurvy is a vitamin C deficiency, not an infection. Lind's study was not a modern randomized trial. Complete the assigned mechanism comparison using its sources and cases, not personal health records. Nutritional repletion and pathogen-specific immune memory are not interchangeable.
Math never drives a unit, but health & nutrition uses it constantly — always anchored to a measurement or a claim at the bench. Here is the quantitative skill each unit actually uses, done inside the investigation context rather than as a parallel curriculum.
| Unit | Applied math at the agreed level |
|---|---|
| 01 Body Systems & Wellness | Reading baseline measurements (resting heart rate, breaths per minute); averages; simple unit conversions. |
| 02 Nutrients & the Science of Food | Converting grams of macronutrient to energy (4, 4, and 9 kcal per gram); reading percent Daily Value. |
| 03 Digestion, Metabolism & Energy | Energy-balance arithmetic (energy in versus energy out); the calorie as a unit of energy; neutral totals, not targets. |
| 04 Building a Healthy Diet | Serving-size ratios; scaling a label to the portion eaten; proportional reasoning across a day of food. |
| 05 Physical Fitness & Exercise Science | Heart-rate-recovery rates over time; plotting a recovery curve; reading change as data, not as a verdict. |
| 06 Mental Health & Stress | Use fictional or de-identified time series to calculate averages and trends; distinguish association from cause. Personal health records are not required. |
| 07 Disease, Immunity & Prevention | Comparison groups and controls; transmission math (spread rates, doubling); percentages and rates. |
| 08 Health Decisions, Media & Consumer Science | Correlation versus causation; relative versus absolute risk; sample size and why a comparison group matters. |
Students do the energy-balance arithmetic inside the digestion-and-metabolism investigation, the serving-size math inside the label analysis, the heart-rate-recovery calculation inside the fitness measurement. The number always means something because it is attached to a result they produced — never a worksheet detached from the science.
Integration is its own strand. Track each unit’s integration level across the year — Developing, Proficient, or Mastery — separate from the science-mastery rubric. Record the evidence reference and date in the final column.
| Unit | Developing | Proficient | Mastery | Evidence / date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 Body Systems & Wellness | ◯ | ◯ | ◯ | ______ |
| 02 Nutrients & Food | ◯ | ◯ | ◯ | ______ |
| 03 Digestion & Metabolism | ◯ | ◯ | ◯ | ______ |
| 04 Building a Healthy Diet | ◯ | ◯ | ◯ | ______ |
| 05 Fitness & Exercise Science | ◯ | ◯ | ◯ | ______ |
| 06 Mental Health & Stress | ◯ | ◯ | ◯ | ______ |
| 07 Disease & Immunity | ◯ | ◯ | ◯ | ______ |
| 08 Health Decisions & Media | ◯ | ◯ | ◯ | ______ |
A student who walks through all eight anchors finishes understanding that health & nutrition is how humans learned to tell what actually works from what only sounds convincing, and that every fact on the page was once a claim someone had to test — the version of the subject a student keeps.