November Lesson Plans & Teaching Topics: Nutrition, Education & Thanksgiving
Free classroom resources for World Diabetes Day, National Education Day, World Diabetes Day, American Education Week, World Children’s Day, and Thanksgiving.
November brings a chance to get cozy and settle into classroom routines as the year winds down. With seasonal celebrations and changing, sometimes surprising weather, there are plenty of opportunities to connect lessons to students’ everyday lives. This month, explore how food, health, education, and community intersect through timely teaching topics that spark curiosity and conversation.
These November lesson plans and teaching topics offer starting points for middle and high school educators, with selected resources for younger learners, too. Students can examine evidence, explore different perspectives, and consider
Our free resource library includes educational videos and supporting materials that make these topics easier to teach.
Featured November Teaching Topics
All month and November 14: Diabetes Awareness: Building Understanding Through Food Education
November 16–20: American Education Week: Supporting Teachers and Educators
November 20: World Children’s Day: Helping Learners Create a Healthier Future
November 26: Thanksgiving: Food Traditions, Community, and Food Waste
Explore ECP’s free, classroom-ready resource library, including videos, lesson plans, activities, discussion prompts, quizzes, and downloadable materials.
All month and November 14: Diabetes Awareness: Building Understanding Through Food Education
World Diabetes Day takes place on November 14. Both of these observances create an opportunity to help students approach a familiar health topic with greater understanding and curiosity. Don’t have time to fit diabetes education into your classroom on November 14? No problem! November is National Diabetes Month in the
United States, so you can explore the topic all month long.
Students may have heard about diabetes through family members. According to the International Diabetes Federation, an estimated one in nine adults aged 20–79 worldwide were living with diabetes in 2024. But hearing the word is different from understanding what it means. Education can help anyone move beyond assumptions and examine how the body uses food, how different forms of diabetes differ, and where nutrition fits into a broader conversation about health.
Featured Resource: Unlocking Diabetes
Developed in partnership with Doctors for Nutrition, ECP’s approximately 15-minute Unlocking Diabetes video explores how diabetes develops and the role nutrition can play in type 2 diabetes prevention and management. Its education package gives educators a starting point for connecting nutrition with the body’s functions and long-term health.
Use Our Classroom Activity: Try “Food Label Detectives,” an activity from the Unlocking Diabetes education package. Working in small groups, students examine food packages to identify added sugar, different names for sugar in ingredient lists, fiber content, and potentially misleading marketing claims. Groups then share their findings and discuss why checking nutrition labels and ingredient lists matters when evaluating a food’s health claims. Explore the full education package for guided lesson plans, homework assignments, discussion prompts, and more!
Pair this resource with Micronutrient Rainbow to explore food variety and the roles of vitamins and minerals.
Live Webinar: Unlocking Diabetes Live Viewing and Q&A with the Developers
Join us and bring World Diabetes Day into your clasroom with a live viewing November 12, 2026, at 2:00 p.m. EST. Watch our co-produced short educational video, Unlocking Diabetes: Nutrition Is the Key, then take part in a live, interactive Q&A with ECP developers and our co-developer, Doctors for Nutrition. Register for the livestream and Q&A.
November 16–20 - American Education Week: Supporting Teachers and Educators
American Education Week recognizes public education and everyone who helps students learn and thrive. In 2026, it takes place November 16–20.
Learning depends on a whole community: teachers, education support professionals, school leaders, families, and others who contribute to students’ daily experiences. Food education offers a way to recognize that shared work, from the staff preparing school meals to the educators helping students understand what those meals provide.
For busy teachers, bringing a new topic into class often means researching content, finding credible sources, and adapting materials. ECP’s free videos and education packages offer a practical starting point, with resources educators can select to fit their subject, learners, and available time.
Featured Resource: Planetary Health
Developed in partnership with the Planetary Health Alliance, ECP’s approximately 18-minute Planetary Health video explores the connections between human health, food systems, and Earth’s natural systems. It offers a starting point for connecting classroom learning with the foods students encounter every day.
Try Our Homework Lesson: “The Sustainable Plate Blueprint & Menu Redesign,” a research project from the Planetary Health education package. Individually or in groups, students evaluate a week of school lunches or a typical family dinner menu and redesign it using Planetary Health Diet principles. They create a “Planetary Health Cookbook Page” with an illustrated comparison of the original and redesigned menus, explaining how their plant-forward substitutions can support human health and reduce environmental impacts. Explore the full education package for guided lesson plans, homework assignments, discussion prompts, and more!
Alternative Featured Resource: Micronutrient Rainbow
At approximately 12 minutes, Micronutrient Rainbow introduces vitamins and minerals through colorful, familiar foods. It explores why these nutrients matter and encourages students to add variety to their plates, including nutritious brown, beige, and white foods that can be overlooked in conversations about “eating the rainbow.”
The presentation also discusses canned and frozen produce as convenient options, helping students recognize that food variety can take different forms.
Use Our Classroom Activity: Try “The 60-Second Grocery Store Takeover (PSA),” an activity from the Micronutrient Rainbow education package. Students work in small groups to create a public service announcement demonstrating the video’s “Grocery Basket Swap” strategy: checking a shopping basket for color variety and swapping a repeated color for a new one. They explain their chosen swap and why food variety matters for health, then record their announcement. Explore the full education package for guided lesson plans, homework assignments, discussion prompts, and more!
November 20: World Children’s Day: Helping Learners Create a Healthier Future
World Children’s Day takes place on November 20, marking the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is an opportunity to recognize children’s rights and listen to their perspectives on the world they want to grow up in.
Food and education belong in that conversation. Students can explore what helps children thrive, including access to nutritious food, meaningful learning opportunities, and a healthy environment. They can also consider how families, schools, and communities help make those conditions possible.
Earlier this year In China, Children's Day was celebrated on June 1 and ECP partnered with ACTAsia’s Plant Forward campaign and Caring for Life education program, Chinese-language versions of ECP educational resources have been introduced to students at 20 schools across 10 provinces and municipalities in China, including Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan, Jilin, and Yunnan.
ECP’s resources are primarily designed for ages 12 and up, with two Bite-Sized Learning Series videos suggested for ages 8–11. These younger-learner resources introduce food’s impacts through accessible, animated stories.
Featured November Lesson Plan Resources: Eat for Your Health and Eat for the Earth
Eat for Your Health: Creating a Colorful Plate introduces younger learners to nutrition and building meals with a variety of foods. Eat for the Earth: Helping the Planet with Every Bite explores how food choices connect with the environment.
Together, they help students begin connecting personal well-being with the world around them.
Use Our Classroom Activity: Try “Create a Healthy Restaurant Menu,” an activity from the Eat for Your Health education package. Students invent a restaurant, choose its name and location, and draw it on paper or create a digital representation. They then write or illustrate a menu featuring three healthy meal options that include colorful plant foods from each food group, plus two snacks. Explore the full education package for guided lesson plans, homework assignments, discussion prompts, and more!
For older students, Planetary Health offers a broader exploration of the connections between human health, food systems, and Earth’s natural systems.
Thanksgiving can offer a familiar entry point into conversations about food, community, and the resources behind a meal. Whether or not students celebrate the holiday, they can explore the journeys of foods served at gatherings and the ways people share meals across different traditions.
Food traditions can carry memories, cultural knowledge, and connections across generations. They also offer opportunities to ask practical questions: Where do ingredients come from?
What resources are needed to produce them?
What happens to food that goes uneaten?
For middle and high school classrooms, these questions connect science, geography, and everyday problem-solving. They can help students think about food waste beyond the leftovers they see on a plate.
Featured Resource: Healthful Eating
ECP’s Healthful Eating presentation explores how food choices affect our health, from providing energy and supporting everyday body functions to influencing long-term disease risk. Students learn about carbohydrates, protein, fats, fiber, vitamins, and minerals, and examine how different food sources help meet our nutritional needs.
Use Our Classroom Activity: Try Activity #6 from the Healthful Eating education package, which invites students to recreate a favorite or culturally meaningful meal using alternative healthy ingredients. Connect it to Thanksgiving by having students choose a dish from their holiday table, or another meaningful gathering, and plan ingredient substitutions that preserve its familiar flavors while supporting nutrition.
Their redesigned meal should include all three macronutrients: carbohydrates, protein, and fat. Encourage students to apply what they learned about different nutrient sources, such as adding beans or lentils for protein and fiber, choosing whole grains, or incorporating unsaturated fats from nuts and seeds. Students can prepare their meals at home, independently or with a parent or guardian, and share photos to inspire their classmates. Explore the full education package for guided lesson plans, homework assignments, discussion prompts, and more!
Pair this resource with Growing Community Roots to explore food access and community connections, or Our Carbon Foodprint to examine the climate impacts associated with food choices.
Looking Ahead to December
Keep the food-systems conversation going as December begins. Wildlife Conservation Day on December 4 and World Soil Day on December 5 offer opportunities to explore biodiversity, habitats, agriculture, and healthy soils. ECP’s The Planet and Our Plates and Planetary Health
can help connect those topics with the foods students encounter every day.
Follow ECP This November
November offers many ways to connect food education with health, community, children’s futures, and the work of educators. Find us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
For classroom-focused inspiration and educator-specific content, follow Teaching Educated Choices on Instagram and Facebook.
About Educated Choices Program:
At the Educated Choices Program, we believe every student deserves access to accurate and engaging education that empowers them to build a better future. If you agree, support our organization by using our resources in your classroom and connecting with us for future updates:
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