'Snack Neutralizer:' a free nutrition education tool that calculates exercise time required to burn calories
Oct. 23, 2012, Park Ridge, Ill.—A free nutrition education tool that earned an elementary school teacher in North Carolina a trip to the White House is being featured this month by ENC-Teacher Exchange, the information-sharing program introduced this year by Egg Nutrition Center (ENC), science division of The American Egg Board in Park Ridge, Ill. Computer Sciences teacher Jeffrey Schwartz was honored at the White House in 2010 for creating The Snack Neutralizer, a free online program that teachers and students of all ages can use to calculate the time required to perform most any given exercise activity to burn calories of a wide variety of snack foods. Schwartz created three new lesson plans this month to accompany the video story called "Snacking on Technology," which can be found here. Egg Nutrition Center created ENC-Teacher Exchange this year to spotlight the best program ideas developed by teachers to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic in America. In addition to featuring some of America's most health-conscious schools in video stories, ENC awards a $500 honorarium to a select number of teachers who submit a new program—such as an innovative five-day lesson plan to better combat childhood obesity—that gets published as a free downloadable teaching tool on the ENC-Teacher Exchange web site. Laurel Park Elementary school Principal Burt Batten, who's been an administrator since the school in Apex, NC first opened in 2008, brought Schwartz aboard last year to specifically teach computer skills to students in Kindergarten thru 5th grade. When Schwartz joined the Laurel Park Wellness Committee and encouraged fellow teachers to make use of his Snack Neutralizer software, his colleagues and their students rallied around it. Schwartz's Snack Neutralizer software earned him an honorable mention in the Apps for Healthy Kids competition in 2010, part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s campaign to combat childhood obesity. Entrants were challenged to create easy-to-use software and tools to motivate children and parents to eat better and be more active. Schwartz worked tirelessly under a tight deadline to illustrate the amount of activity required by students to burn off their favorite snacks. "I created this site as a first grade teacher because I was troubled by what it was my kids were bringing in for snack time," explains Schwartz, who earned his business finance degree at Tulane University and a Master's in Computer Science from Hood College in Fredrick, MD. "The Snack Neutralizer was always intended to be free because I wanted people to use it." All nutrition educators in grades K thru 12, notably members of The American Association of Family & Consumer Sciences (aafcs.org) with which ENC is affiliated, are invited to join ENC-Teacher Exchange online at no charge by clicking here. And they're encouraged to submit new or existing obesity-fighting program ideas and teaching tools to ENC-Teacher Exchange for a chance to earn the $500 honorarium by writing to info@encteacher.org. -0-
Media contact: John LeGear, ENC-Teacher Exchange program manager (cell: 708-431-6919) Visit us and join ENC-Teacher Exchange today at: www.encteacher.org
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