Growing Healthy Kids: A School Enrichment Nutrition Education Program to Promote Healthy Behaviors for Children

The Growing Healthy Kids Program is a school-based nutrition education program that teaches students in Kindergarten through 2nd grade about healthy eating, physical activity, and how their body uses food. Pre- and post-knowledge data is collected from the students to measure changes in nutrition knowledge. In the first 2 years of the program, significant improvements in nutrition knowledge were found in all three grades. Teachers reported that students were more aware of the importance of nutrition and were making healthier meal and/or snack choices at the end of the program

A Multimodel Real-Time System for Global Probabilistic Subseasonal Forecasts of Precipitation and Temperature

A global multimodel probabilistic subseasonal forecast system for precipitation and near-surface temperature is developed based on three NOAA ensemble prediction systems that make their forecasts available publicly in real time as part of the Subseasonal Experiment (SubX). The weekly and biweekly ensemble means of precipitation and temperature of each model are individually calibrated at each grid point using extended logistic regression, prior to forming equal-weighted multimodel ensemble (MME) probabilistic forecasts. Reforecast skill of week-3–4 precipitation and temperature is assessed in terms of the cross-validated ranked probability skill score (RPSS) and reliability diagram. The multimodel reforecasts are shown to be well calibrated for both variables. Precipitation is moderately skillful over many tropical land regions, including Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, and over subtropical South America, Africa, and Australia. Near-surface temperature skill is considerably higher than for precipitation and extends into the extratropics as well. The multimodel RPSS skill of both precipitation and temperature is shown to exceed that of any of the constituent models over Indonesia, South Asia, South America, and East Africa in all seasons. An example real-time week-3–4 global forecast for 13–26 November 2021 is illustrated and shown to bear the hallmarks of the combined influences of a moderate Madden–Julian oscillation event as well as weak–moderate ongoing La Niña event

EVALUATION OF NUTRITION AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY CURRICULA BASED ON THE SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY

Background: Childhood obesity has increased over the past two decades, causing numerous complications. Currently, there is no required standardized curriculum for nutrition/physical activity in the United States. The objective of the current study is to examine the effects of a three-week, social cognitive theory-based nutrition/physical activity curricula on changes of behaviors among 5th grade students. Methods: This study will be conducted in Lincoln Public Schools, involving three phases: Phase 1: A Social Cognitive Theory based survey measuring behavior change, knowledge, self-efficacy, and environment will be developed and validated using eight nutrition experts. The survey will be pilot tested with a fifth grade class from a Lincoln parochial school never exposed to the curricula.Phase 2: The validated and tested surveys will be distributed in four Title I (intervention) and four non-Title I (control) schools that have been randomly selected (sample size ~ 800-1000 fifth grade students). Surveys will be analyzed using SPSS and results will be used to assess the current curricula and recommend changes for Phase 3. Phase 3: The current curricula will be modified or new curricula will be developed and then piloted. Implications: Survey results would identify if the current nutrition/physical activity curricula is effective for positive behavior change. In addition, areas to improve the curricula will be identified to enhance positive nutrition and physical activity education and behavior change

Different factors limit early‐ and late‐season windows of opportunity for monarch development

Abstract Seasonal windows of opportunity are intervals within a year that provide improved prospects for growth, survival, or reproduction. However, few studies have sufficient temporal resolution to examine how multiple factors combine to constrain the seasonal timing and extent of developmental opportunities. Here, we document seasonal changes in milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis)–monarch (Danaus plexippus) interactions with high resolution throughout the last three breeding seasons prior to a precipitous single‐year decline in the western monarch population. Our results show early‐ and late‐season windows of opportunity for monarch recruitment that were constrained by different combinations of factors. Early‐season windows of opportunity were characterized by high egg densities and low survival on a select subset of host plants, consistent with the hypothesis that early‐spring migrant female monarchs select earlier‐emerging plants to balance a seasonal trade‐off between increasing host plant quantity and decreasing host plant quality. Late‐season windows of opportunity were coincident with the initiation of host plant senescence, and caterpillar success was negatively correlated with heatwave exposure, consistent with the hypothesis that late‐season windows were constrained by plant defense traits and thermal stress. Throughout this study, climatic and microclimatic variations played a foundational role in the timing and success of monarch developmental windows by affecting bottom‐up, top‐down, and abiotic limitations. More exposed microclimates were associated with higher developmental success during cooler conditions, and more shaded microclimates were associated with higher developmental success during warmer conditions, suggesting that habitat heterogeneity could buffer the effects of climatic variation. Together, these findings show an important dimension of seasonal change in milkweed–monarch interactions and illustrate how different biotic and abiotic factors can limit the developmental success of monarchs across the breeding season. These results also suggest the potential for seasonal sequences of favorable or unfavorable conditions across the breeding range to strongly affect monarch population dynamics