Nutrition & Physical Activity Programs
PE-Nut U.P.
Physical Education & Nutrition in the Upper Peninsula (PE-Nut UP) is a nutrition and physical education program that uses a whole-school approach to motivate students, parents and educators to be physically active and eat healthier.
PE-Nut is designed to improve health behaviors in a school and it's surrounding community by presenting simple, consistent nutrition and physical activity messages and resources.
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MARESA currently offers the PE-Nut UP program in 14 school districts across 5 central UP counties. Teen Battle Chef was piloted this year with the Ishpeming 6th grade students.
Food Navigator
The Food Navigator program is offered at farmers markets that accept food assistance benefits. The Food Navigator helps shoppers maximize their food dollars to plan healthy, affordable meals. This program offers free nutrition resources, recipe demonstrations & tastings, and community outreach. MARESA has been offering the Food Navigator program at the Downtown Marquette Farmers Market since 2020.
Farm to Families
With funding provided by a USDA grant, Michigan Farm to Family Community Supported Agriculture (MF2FCSA) is a Michigan Fitness Foundation initiative to encourage the consumption of fruits and vegetables by connecting people to fresh food grown by Michigan’s many local farmers.
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You can now use your SNAP benefits to get an entire box of veggies for only $7.50 a week through the Dukes Farm CSA Box. For 18 weeks of veggies! Check out more info here.
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Please, contact Rachel Bloch at rbloch@maresa.org with any questions about the Marquette-Alger RESA Nutrition programs.
Locally Integrated Food Teams in the Upper Peninsula (LIFT-UP)
LIFT-UP is a land-based learning project that offers students an opportunity to work with their classmates, local farmers and school lunch staff to answer questions about their school food landscape. Through this project, each participating class proposes ideas about how they might serve more local food in the lunchroom and a mini-grant to spend toward a proposed intervention of choice.
LIFT-UP is a project-based curriculum that teachers work through with the support of MSU UP Research & Extension Center (UPREC) and Marquette-Alger RESA staff during the fall semester. The project has students work toward answering the question: "What would it take to get more local food into the school lunchroom?”
After walking through the curriculum, students receive mini-grant funding to implement their proposed intervention during the second half of the school year. Students then have an opportunity to learn about careers in the food system and share their projects at a Celebration of Student Work day in the spring.
Marquette-Alger RESA and UPREC will be offering a free professional development opportunity in June 2023 for teachers and food service directors interested in learning more about land-based learning. Details coming soon.
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2021-22 Negaunee Intervention: Hydroponic system to produce salad greens for the lunchroom
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2021-22 Celebration of Student Work @ MSU North Farm
Superior Central & Negaunee High School project participants
For more information, please contact:
Haley Brasier, Marquette-Alger RESA
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Abbey Palmer, MSU UP Research & Extension Center