School Wellness Investigation

How to Conduct the School Wellness Investigation

Although students should gather the majority of the data, an adult should coordinate the collection of the information and should enter the information online. Here are key steps the coordinator can take to facilitate a successful School Wellness Investigation.

Prepare to Conduct the School Wellness Investigation

1. Identify a coordinator for the School Wellness Investigation. Ideally, this will be the Fuel Up to Play 60 Program Advisor, but any adult can serve in this role. Note: If you decide to conduct the Investigation at the beginning of the year and again at the end of the year, it’s a good idea to have the same coordinator. This will help ensure consistency in the results.
2. Review each of the three modules. As the Investigation coordinator, you’ll find it helpful to familiarize yourself with each of the modules before you involve students.
3. Get buy-in from school administrators. Having strong administrative support greatly improves the process of completing the School Wellness Investigation. School administrators can reinforce your efforts and can help to ensure that key adults in the school building provide students with the information they need. Reach out to your principal, assistant principal(s), health education teacher(s), physical education teacher(s), school nutrition manager and any other staff members who may be able to provide the data your team will need.
4. Make sure you’ve formed a student Fuel Up to Play 60 team. If you haven’t already done so, recruit students to serve on your Fuel Up to Play 60 team. The entire Fuel Up to Play 60 program should be student-led – and it’s especially important that students help to gather the information for the School Wellness Investigation. This can be a great learning and leadership opportunity, and your results will have more weight if they reflect student input.

Gather Information

Remember: Although you will ultimately enter your responses online, it’s still helpful to provide students with a paper version to facilitate these six steps.

1. Print out each of the three modules. The modules can be completed one at a time – or you can break students into teams and have them gather information on all three modules concurrently.
2. Form groups. Split your Fuel Up to Play 60 student team into three groups with at least two students per group. Having two students in each group increases accuracy and ensures that multiple viewpoints are reflected. Depending on the size of your student team, each group should handle one or more modules.
3. Understand each module. Make sure each student has a printed copy of the assigned module. Each student group should read the assigned module carefully and discuss the questions among themselves. As the guiding adult, you can help make sure students understand each question.
4. Answer questions as possible. Groups should answer any questions they can after discussing together and agreeing on the appropriate answers. Encourage students to answer questions as accurately as possible – and to seek additional information where needed.
5. Reach out for further information. Some questions will require more information. In these cases, students should reach out to the school nutrition manager, physical education department chair and/or other school administrators and staff members. You can help facilitate this step: make sure these key adults know the importance of the School Wellness Investigation, and encourage them to provide information to your student groups.
6. Discuss the answers. When all questions are complete, all three groups should gather to discuss the answers. This is a good time to make sure all information has been collected.

Enter Information Online
 

1. Enter your responses on the online School Wellness Investigation, available at www.FuelUpToPlay60.com. Remember that an adult – preferably the School Wellness Investigation coordinator – should enter the results online. The online tool will automatically calculate the Module Score at the end of each module as well as the Overall Score Card results. NOTE: You may enter your responses in multiple sessions. The system will save your responses when you click “CONTINUE” at the end of each page. The completed investigation report will be date stamped with the LAST DATE on which you entered or updated responses.
2. Print a copy of your completed online investigation results. Share these results with student team members and the adults who helped conduct the Investigation and/or provided information.

Interpret the Results

1. Gather student team members and key adults. Remember to keep the focus on student input – but involve key adults as desired.
2. Discuss your overall findings. What’s happening with nutrition and physical activity in your school now? Where do you see the greatest opportunities for making things even better?
3. Identify the Plays you’ll implement. The online Fuel Up to Play 60 Playbook provides several dozen "Plays" – targeted activities that can help you make improvements in your school’s nutrition and physical activity environment. Working with students, select one Healthy Eating Play and one Physical Activity Play that you’ll implement this school year.
4. Discuss the potential impact of the Plays you’ve selected. What will your school be like if you implement these Plays? How will the food available in school be better? How will physical activity opportunities improve? How will these changes impact students in your school? Why will students want to participate in the Plays you’ve selected?
5. Ask students to think carefully about their role as student leaders. Ask student team members: “Why do you want to work on these Plays? Why will other people in our school want to help you? How will your efforts improve our school?”
6. Take action. Finalize your Play selection – and begin taking the steps necessary to implement your chosen Plays.