Learning objectives clearly define what students will know and be able to do as a result of each lesson. These objectives focus on developing functional health knowledge, building understanding related to the dimensions of health, and applying essential health skills to real-life situations. Every objective is designed to align with the SHAPE America National Health Education Standards, ensuring that instruction is comprehensive, skills-based, and promotes lifelong well-being.

The Goal: Students are introduced to the concept of environment by exploring the spaces they live, learn, and play in. They begin to understand how their surroundings affect how they feel, think, and act, and learn simple habits to care for these spaces.

✅ Explore the concept of “environment” by mapping key environments in their lives: earth, community, school, and home.

→ Related SHAPE America Health Standard: #1: Build and Apply Functional Knowledge

✅ Build awareness that their surroundings influence how they feel, think, and act.

→ Related SHAPE America Health Standard: #2: Analyzing Influences 

✅ Identify basic habits that support a healthy environment (e.g., picking up trash, turning off lights, watering plants).

→ Related SHAPE America Health Standard: #7: Practice Health Enhancing Behaviors

→ Related SHAPE America Health Standard: #2 Analyzing Influences

Functional knowledge refers to the essential health concepts students need to understand in order to build awareness of how environmental health shows up in their lives. This knowledge helps students make informed choices and lays the foundation for managing this aspect of their well-being with intention and confidence.

💡 What is an environment and what are the environments in my life?
Students understand that an environment is any space where people live, learn, and play, including the earth, their community, their school, and their home.

💡 How does your environment influence how you feel, think, and act?
Students begin to recognize that their surroundings, like noise, colors, people, and organization, can affect their mood, focus, and behavior.


💡 What are simple habits that help take care of the environment?

Students learn age-appropriate ways to support a healthy environment, such as picking up trash, turning off lights, watering plants, recycling, and caring for shared spaces.

Activities are health education learning engagements that help students explore, interact with, and build deeper understanding of the health topic. Each learning activity is designed to support a skills-based health approach and provide meaningful opportunities for students to explore the functional knowledge and practice the health skills.

🔎 Environment Mapping

Students draw or build a simple map showing the four key environments in their life: Earth, community, school, and home. For each environment, they include drawings or labels of important places, people, and objects.

→ Connects to: What is an environment and what are the environments in my life?

🔎 Feel-Think-Act Scavenger Hunt

Students go on a classroom or school-wide scavenger hunt. At each stop, they take note of how that space makes them feel, what they think about there, and how they usually act in that space (e.g., calm, playful, distracted).

→ Connects to: How does your environment influence how you feel, think, and act?

🔎 Healthy Habit Chain

Each student writes or draws one environmentally healthy habit on a strip of paper (e.g., turn off the faucet while brushing, recycle paper, pick up trash). Connect the strips into a class paper chain to represent collective action.

→ Connects to: What are simple habits that help take care of the environment?

These project-based learning assessments are designed to measure both what students understand and how well they can apply their functional health knowledge and health skills in meaningful, real-world ways. Each health assessment idea aligns with the SHAPE America National Health Education Standards and offers students a practical, hands-on learning experience. By actively using health skills to navigate realistic scenarios, students demonstrate their ability to think critically, make informed decisions, and take ownership of their well-being.

📚 Environment Storytelling

Students write or draw a short story that takes place in one of their everyday environments (home, school, community, or Earth). Their story should show how the space affects how a character feels, thinks, or acts.

→ Assesses: Understanding of various environments and how each influences behavior and emotions.

📚 Classroom Care Poster

Students design a colorful poster that encourages classmates to take care of a shared space (e.g., clean up supplies, use recycling bins, water plants).

→ Assesses: Awareness of healthy environmental habits and the ability to promote positive change.

📚 Environment Habit Report Card

Students complete a simple checklist or “report card” rating how well they practice environmental habits during the week (e.g., Did I turn off the lights? Did I recycle?). Include a reflection: What’s one thing I did well? What’s one thing I want to improve?

→ Assesses: Awareness of healthy environmental habits and the ability to promote positive change.

Learning objectives clearly define what students will know and be able to do as a result of each lesson. These objectives focus on developing functional health knowledge, building understanding related to the dimensions of health, and applying essential health skills to real-life situations. Every objective is designed to align with the SHAPE America National Health Education Standards, ensuring that instruction is comprehensive, skills-based, and promotes lifelong well-being.

The Goal: Students build personal awareness of the two-way relationship they have with their environment. They explore how their surroundings impact their well-being and begin practicing habits that support healthier spaces.

✅ Develop deep awareness of how surroundings influence how they feel, think, and act.

→ Related SHAPE America Health Standards: #1 Functional Knowledge and #2 Analyzing Influences

✅ Explore specific environmental factors (e.g., lighting, noise, clutter, screen time) and how they influence how they feel, think, and act.

→ Related SHAPE America Health Standards: #1 Functional Knowledge and #3 Analyzing Influences

✅ Recognize how their habits impact the environments they live in and practice small actions that support and protect those surroundings.

→ Related SHAPE America Health Standards: #6 Decision Making and #7 Practice Health Enhancing Behaviors

Functional knowledge refers to the essential health concepts students need to understand in order to build awareness of how environmental health shows up in their lives. This knowledge helps students make informed choices and lays the foundation for managing this aspect of their well-being with intention and confidence.

💡 What does it mean for a space to influence how you feel, think, and act?

Students understand that their environments, including lighting, noise, layout, people, and even digital spaces, can affect their mood, focus, motivation, and behavior.

💡 What are the environmental factors that influence well-being?

Students explore specific environmental factors like air quality, temperature, noise, lighting, screen time, clutter, and social dynamics, learning how each can support or challenge their physical and mental health.

💡 How do my habits impact the environments I spend time in?

Students recognize that their daily actions, like organization, cleanliness, use of resources, and behavior in shared spaces, play a role in shaping healthy or unhealthy environments for themselves and others.

Activities are health education learning engagements that help students explore, interact with, and build deeper understanding of the health topic. Each learning activity is designed to support a skills-based health approach and provide meaningful opportunities for students to explore the functional knowledge and practice the health skills.

🔎 Feel-Think-Act School Scan

Students complete a guided walk-through of the school and document how different spaces impact their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors but with deeper reflection than in elementary. They assess why those effects occur and connect them to environmental elements (e.g., "This hallway feels chaotic because it's crowded and loud").

→ Connects to: Builds on elementary scavenger hunt by introducing analysis and reflection.

🔎 Environmental Factor Exploration: Cause + Effect Web

Students research and visually map how specific environmental factors (lighting, noise, temperature, clutter, screen time, etc.) influence mental focus, emotional regulation, and physical well-being. They connect each factor to real-world examples from their own lives and reflect on how these elements show up in home, school, and digital spaces.

→ Connects to: Moves beyond identifying to analyzing environmental influences with real-life connections.

🔎 Eco-Habit Tracker

To build personal awareness, students track their daily habits that impact the environment for one week (e.g., waste, water use, energy, transportation, screen time). They reflect on what changes they could make to better support environmental and personal health.

→ Connects to: This activity builds personal awareness and encourages self-reflection without pressure or grading, making it a gentle intro to environmental responsibility.

These project-based learning assessments are designed to measure both what students understand and how well they can apply their functional health knowledge and health skills in meaningful, real-world ways. Each health assessment idea aligns with the SHAPE America National Health Education Standards and offers students a practical, hands-on learning experience. By actively using health skills to navigate realistic scenarios, students demonstrate their ability to think critically, make informed decisions, and take ownership of their well-being.

📚 "My Surroundings, My Self" Reflection Poster

Students create a poster or digital slide showing how their core environments influence how they feel, think, and act.

→ Assesses awareness of surroundings and their impact (SHAPE Standards #1 and #2)

📚 Environmental Factor News Report

Students select one environmental factor (e.g., clutter, screen time, noise) and create a news report explaining its impact.

→ Assesses understanding and analysis of environmental factors (Standards #1 and #2)

📚 Environmental Health Report Card

Students create a personalized Environmental Health Report Card to track daily habits, reflect on how their environment influences their well-being, and build health-supportive routines.

→ Assesses application of health-enhancing behavior (SHAPE Standard #7)

Learning objectives clearly define what students will know and be able to do as a result of each lesson. These objectives focus on developing functional health knowledge, building understanding related to the dimensions of health, and applying essential health skills to real-life situations. Every objective is designed to align with the SHAPE America National Health Education Standards, ensuring that instruction is comprehensive, skills-based, and promotes lifelong well-being.

The Goal: Students examine how environmental health issues affect their communities and take informed action. Through advocacy, they apply their skills and knowledge to create meaningful change in their local environments.

✅Students will understand how environmental health is interconnected with personal and community well-being.

→ Related SHAPE America Health Standard # 2: Analyzing Influences and Standard #5: Decision-Making

✅ Students will identify environmental issues and sources of environmental harm in their school or local community.

→ Related SHAPE America Health Standard #1: Functional Knowledge and Standard #2: Analyzing Influences

✅ Students will engage as informed citizens who care about their environments by using advocacy skills to design and implement a campaign or project that promotes environmental health.

→ Related SHAPE America Health Standard # 8: Advocacy

Functional knowledge refers to the essential health concepts students need to understand in order to build awareness of how environmental health shows up in their lives. This knowledge helps students make informed choices and lays the foundation for managing this aspect of their well-being with intention and confidence.

💡 Identify and examine your spaces.

Students should explore and reflect on the environments they’re part of, school, home, work, online, nature, and how those spaces impact their well-being.

💡 Understand key environmental health issues that impact individual and community well-being.

Students explore current environmental health issues (e.g., pollution, climate change, food access, environmental racism) to build the background knowledge needed to make informed decisions and engage in meaningful advocacy.

💡 Know what it means to advocate.

Advocacy means noticing something that needs to change and using your voice or actions to create that change.

Activities are health education learning engagements that help students explore, interact with, and build deeper understanding of the health topic. Each learning activity is designed to support a skills-based health approach and provide meaningful opportunities for students to explore the functional knowledge and practice the health skills.

🔎 Environmental Photo Scrapbook

Students complete a scavenger hunt by taking or drawing photos of places that evoke specific feelings or behaviors (e.g., a place that helps you focus, a place that makes you anxious, a spot that feels peaceful). They reflect on what these images reveal about the influence of their environment.

→ Connects to: Builds foundational awareness of environmental impact on well-being

🔎 Advocacy Exploration

Students research the work of environmental advocates (past or present) to explore different forms of advocacy. Then they reflect on which issues matter to them and brainstorm ways they could use their voice or actions to make an impact.

→ Connects to: Builds understanding of advocacy in real-world contexts

🔎 Human Impact Audit

Students investigate how human actions are helping or harming local and global environments. They analyze behaviors and systems that influence environmental health and discuss what needs to be protected or changed.

→ Connects to: Deepens functional knowledge and critical thinking around environmental harm

These project-based learning assessments are designed to measure both what students understand and how well they can apply their functional health knowledge and health skills in meaningful, real-world ways. Each health assessment idea aligns with the SHAPE America National Health Education Standards and offers students a practical, hands-on learning experience. By actively using health skills to navigate realistic scenarios, students demonstrate their ability to think critically, make informed decisions, and take ownership of their well-being.

📚 Design a Space for Well-Being

Students design a classroom, bedroom, or community space that supports how they want to feel, think, and act. They must explain their design choices using health-enhancing principles (lighting, layout, nature, sound, etc.).

→ Assesses application of environmental influences on wellness and use of health-enhancing behaviors

📚 SCAN a Space

Using the SCAN skill cue (Situation, Core Influence, Analyze, Now What?), students select a familiar space and evaluate how it impacts their well-being, identifying specific elements that help or hurt.

→ Assesses ability to analyze influences and reflect on how to navigate environmental impacts

📚 Design an Advocacy Campaign

Using the VOICE skill cue (Validate, Organize, Identify, Champion, Evaluate), students create and present a mini advocacy campaign addressing an environmental health issue important to them.

→ Assesses knowledge of advocacy practices and ability to create informed, student-led action