AZHZ - Arizona Health Zone

The Arizona Health Zone is funded with State and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Administration dollars through matching federal financial participation from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).  The program provides nutrition education to local schools, Head Start programs, public housing, libraries, child care centers, churches, parks, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) offices and Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) offices. 


Age-appropriate curriculum includes: 

  • Color Me Healthy
    • Color me Healthy is a program developed to reach children ages four and five with fun, interactive learning opportunities on physical activity and healthy eating.  It is designed to stimulate all of the senses of young children: touch, smell, sight, sound, and, of course, taste.  Through the use of color, music, and exploration of the sense, Color Me Healthy teaches children that healthy food and physical activity are fun.
  • Grow It, Try It, Like It!
    • Grow It, Try It, Like It! Is a nutrition education kit featuring MyPlate in a garden themed nutrition education kit for child care center staff.  Each set of lessons contains: hands-on activities, planting activities, and nutrition education activities that introduce MyPlate.  Use of the kit promotes learning at home with fun parent/child activities and family-sized recipes that give tips for cooking with children.

  • Botany on Your Plate
    • Botany on Your Plate is a life science unit that inspires children to explore the fascinating realm of plants we eat.  Every lesson begins with plant tastings that spark curiosity, interesting question, and social dialogue to fuel the learning process.  This inquiry approach engages children as botanists observing and collecting data, discussing findings, and reflecting on what they learn as they study edible roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds.
  • Cooking Matters Chefs and Kids
    • Cooking Matters for Chefs and Kids is an easy-to-use guide that helps chefs, nutrition educators, and food service professionals provide hands-on instruction that will help kids develop a love of cooking and the skills to make healthy food choices wherever they go.  Within the guide you will find a variety of resources to help you engage kids, including tips and advice for planning fun activities, materials lists and activity instructions, appealing and interactive recipes for kids, and fun handouts that supplement the lessons of each activity. 
  • Discover MyPlate
    • Discover MyPlate is a fun and inquiry-based nutrition education that fosters the development of healthy food choices and physically active lifestyles for children.  Kindergarten teachers can meet education standards for Math, Science, English and Language Arts, and Health using the 6 ready-to-go and interactive lessons.  Children become food-smart as they practice counting, reading, writing and more. 
  • Eat Together, Eat Better
    • The Eat Together, Eat Better lessons support nutrition, parent, and youth educators in teaching the importance of family meals.  The lessons use a mix of interactive learning formats, including small- and large-group discussions, brainstorming, planning and cooking activities.  All of these activities create discussion, encourage problem solving, and develop skills to support family meals.
  • Food Smarts
    • Interactive, learner-centered curriculum for nutrition educators bringing programs to low-income audiences.  Ideally a recipe is prepared during each lesson.
  • Growing Healthy Habits
    • Growing Healthy Habits is a gardening and nutrition education curriculum for elementary aged kids.  This resources focuses on integrating nutrition into the classroom through gardening and scripted lessons that meet science, language arts, social studies, health, and math objectives.  Growing Healthy Habits uses gardening as a tool for encouraging students to consume more fruits and vegetables and whole grains, and increase physical activity.
  • Healthy Classrooms, Healthy Schools
    • Healthy Classrooms, Healthy Schools helps teachers transform their classroom and school into environments promoting healthy eating and physical activity.  This curriculum includes two sets of supplemental lessons, one for grades K-2 and one for grades 3-5.  Healthy Classrooms, Healthy Schools can also be ordered with companion books that have nutrition and physical activity themes tailored to individual grades, K-5.  The curriculum includes eight lessons incorporating 27 activities.  Fitbit is a best practice resource component that gets students up out of their seats and moving while, at the same time, reinforcing nutrition and health concepts that are aligned with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, grade level National Health Standards, and USDA MyPlate.  Another accompanying resource is Health Through Literacy, which is a book set of five to six books, age-appropriate for each grade K-5. Each set includes books with nutrition and physical activity themes.
  • Junior Master Gardener- Level 1
    • The 2016 revised Junior Master Gardener (JMG) Level 1 curriculum provides elementary teachers with the tools to teach the world of gardening with eight chapters of novel, hands-on and proven lessons.  The curriculum also helps develop like skills, included career exploration and provides opportunities for students to culminate the JMG experience with service-learning projects.  As students complete areas of study, they can earn different recognition certifications including designation as Certified Junior Master Gardeners.  Each chapter is divided into sections called teaching concepts. Then, there are multiple activities within each teaching concept.
  • The Great Garden Detective
    • Discover which fruits and vegetables are sweetest, crunchiest, and juiciest through a sense of investigations and fun experiences connecting the school garden to the classroom, school cafeteria, and home.  This eleven lesson curriculum for 3rd and 4th grades includes bulletin board materials, veggie dice, fruit and vegetable flash cards, and ten issues of Garden Detective News for parents/caregivers.
  • Learn Grow Eat GO
    • Learn, Grow, Eat & Go! (LGEG) is a 10- week unit of study (two lessons per week) that is hands-on, multi-faceted, and academically rich.  It combines the interdisciplinary elements of nutrition, garden science, physical activity, food preparation, and fresh vegetable tastings to improve the health and wellness of children, families, and the school community.

  • Cooking Matters Chefs and Kids
    • Cooking Matters for Chefs and Kids is an easy-to-use guide that helps chefs, nutrition educators, and food service professionals provide hands-on instruction that will help kids develop a love of cooking and the skills to make healthy food choices wherever they go.  Within the guide you will find a variety of resources to help you engage kids, including tips and advice for planning fun activities, materials lists and activity instructions, appealing and interactive recipes for kids, and fun handouts that supplement the lessons of each activity.
  • Food Smarts
    • Interactive, learner-centered curriculum for nutrition educators bringing programs to low-income audiences.  Ideally a recipe is prepared during each lesson.
  • Junior Master Gardener-Level 2
    • The Junior Master Gardener (JMG) Level 2 Operation Thistle module allows students to participate in novel, hands-on activities focusing on Plant Growth and Development.  Students will work as a group to complete lessons in each of the learning concepts in the guide then work independently to complete activities which are found within the mission briefs and mission option pages.  JMG Level Two combines Teacher/Leader Guide and reproducible pages of independent student “handbook” activities into a single book.  This premier program encourages youth to take part in service projects in their community. 

  • Around the Table
    • Holistic, trauma-sensitive nutrition education workshop based curricula designed for teens, young adults or parents/caregivers of children to spend time cooking, sharing, and exploring how to best nourish body and mind.
  • Cooking Matters Chefs and Kids
    • Cooking Matters for Chefs and Kids is an easy-to-use guide that helps chefs, nutrition educators, and food service professionals provide hands-on instruction that will help kids develop a love of cooking and the skills to make healthy food choices wherever they go.  Within the guide you will find a variety of resources to help you engage kids, including tips and advice for planning fun activities, materials lists and activity instructions, appealing and interactive recipes for kids, and fun handouts that supplement the lessons of each activity.
  • Food Smarts
    • Interactive, learner-centered curriculum for nutrition educators bringing programs to low-income audiences.  Ideally a recipe is prepared during each lesson.

  • Around the Table
    • Holistic, trauma-sensitive nutrition education workshop based curricula designed for teens, young adults or parents/caregivers of children to spend time cooking, sharing, and exploring how to best nourish body and mind.
  • Eat Smart, Live Strong
    • Eat Smart, Live Strong is an intervention designed to improve fruit and vegetable consumption and physical activity among 60-74 year olds participating in or eligible for FNS nutrition assistance programs.  The intervention can support the efforts of program providers and communities in delivering nutrition education to low-income older adults.  Each session in Eat Smart, Live Strong focuses on changing behavior by guiding participants in learning and practicing new skills.
  • Eating Smart Being Active
    • Eating Smart Being Active is designed for paraprofessional nutrition educators to use when teaching low-income families with young children to learn healthy lifestyle choices.  Eating Smart Being Active covers topics about physical activity, nutrition and healthy lifestyle choices, food preparation (cooking), and food resource management (saving money at the grocery store), eating a variety of healthy foods from all of the food groups, food safety, reducing fat, sugar and salt, and feeding children.  The lessons contain a variety of hands-on activities to reinforce learning and allow participants to apply the newly learned information.  A food preparation activity, tasting, and physical activity are included in every lesson.
  • Eat Together, Eat Better
    • The Eat Together, Eat Better lessons support nutrition, parent, and youth educators in teaching the importance of family meals.  The lessons use a mix of interactive learning formats, including small- and large-group discussions, brainstorming, planning and cooking activities.  All of these activities create discussion, encourage problem solving, and develop skills to support family meals.
  • MyPlate for MyFamily
    • MyPlate for MyFamily: SNAP Nutrition Education is a MyPlate resource that supports SNAP-ED nutrition education and obesity prevention efforts, and is based on recommendations from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.  It is targeted to parents and caregivers who are SNAP participants or eligible for SNAP, and play a key role in planning, purchasing, and preparing food for their families. 
  • Seed to Supper
    • Seed to Supper is a six week classroom-based beginning gardening curriculum developed by Oregon Food Bank in collaboration with Oregon State University Extension.  The goal of the program is to increase food security of low-income audiences by providing training in beginning vegetable gardening.  The curriculum uses structured PowerPoint slide sets, a participant workbook, and time for instructor/audience Q&A.  Materials to train volunteer teachers from the community are also provided. 

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