Fruits and vegetables provide our bodies with important nutrients that keep us strong and healthy. Our bodies need nutrients like vitamins and minerals to survive. However, we can’t make nutrients ourselves; we must get them from the foods we eat. Without nutrients, our bodies will get sick and won’t work properly.

In this activity, you’ll learn about the different nutrients found in fruits and vegetables and how they help us stay healthy.

You will need:

• Fruit and vegetable cards printed and cut out
• Body map printed
• Crayons or markers
• Fruit/Veggie card (download below)
• Map of Human Body (download below)

Directions:

1. Use the hints on the back of each card to decide what part of your body you think the nutrient in that fruit or vegetable helps.
   
   *Keep in mind, fruits and vegetables contain many different nutrients and help lots of organs or systems inside our bodies, so there could be more than one correct answer for each body part.
2. Once you have a guess for each body part, use the guide below to check your answers.

Guide:

• Kale and spinach
• Vitamin K, needed by the brain
• Carrots
• Vitamin A, needed by the eyes
• Broccoli
• Calcium, needed by the bones
• Beans
• Fiber, needed by the intestines
• Bananas
• Potassium, needed the by muscles for sending and receiving electrical signals to and from the brain
• Berries
• Phytonutrients, antioxidants needed by the heart
• Oranges
• Vitamin C, needed by the skin for healing
• Red Peppers
• Vitamin C, needed by the lungs and immune system
• Brussels Sprouts
• Folate, needed by the blood to produce new red blood cells

Keep your body healthy and strong by giving it all the nutrients it needs. Now that your body is fueled with nutrients from fruits and vegetables, use crayons or markers to fill in the body map and make it look like you!

This activity is a part of Discovery Place’s ongoing grant partnership with GrowingGreat