Students will:

1. Read articles about the Blue Zones, life expectancy and healthy and unhealthy habits of people around the world.
2. Participate in class discussion of key terms and concepts related to aging, health.
3. Conduct an observational self-study of one’s own sleeping, eating and activity habits within a specific period of time. Analyze trends and develop goals for improvement.

Sardinia, Italy, Okinawa, Japan, The Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica, and Loma Linda in California are full of people who are 75 years and older living healthy lives. Dan Buettner’s New York Times bestselling book, The Blue Zones: Lessons For Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest has identified and explored these places around the world where the eldest and healthiest people live, and the recent media attention surrounding it demonstrates the ever-popular fascination with the questions it asks. 

This isn’t all: we are in a moment of “Unprecedented Global Aging”, or so claims the CDC report commissioned by the National Institute of Aging in July 2009. Around the world, there is a growing increase in life expectancy. Why is this happening? Is this happening universally? What accounts for all these people making it to 100 years old these days? What can we learn from these questions? Where do these people live? And where don’t they? This lesson will look at Buettner’s ‘Blue Zones’ and in contrast, the unhealthy habits that are accelerating the biological clocks of folks in Russia and the Southern U.S. at a rate out of sync with the aging world. We cannot control our genetics, but we can make choices about our lifestyle once we become aware of our own habits and educated about the possibilities for change.

Lesson 1
10 minutes

1. Watch Margaret Warner’s NewsHour report on Russian Unhealthy Habits, "In Russia, Unhealthy Habits Make Funerals Outpace Births". As they are watching, have students take notes on what they see.
2. Listen to NPR piece "Southern Women Living Shorter Lives".

40 minutes

3. Ask students to reflect: why are these people considered to be ‘unhealthy?’ What can be done to create more healthy options for them? Are the individuals themselves responsible for all changes that need to be made to move their lifestyle in a healthier direction? What else needs to happen? What are the economic forces affecting their choices?
4. In the NewsHour report, Margaret Warner points to the powerful social and cultural attitudes that have deeply ingrained high levels of alcohol and tobacco consumption in Russian life. The Russian Minister of Health and Social Development, Tatiana Golikova points to a long history of men’s reluctance to seek medical attention. Ask the students: What attitudes or beliefs do we hold that prevent us from making healthy choices? Why might someone feel unable or unwilling to access medical care? What role does the media play in shaping these attitudes?

10 minutes

5. Distribute Self-Study handouts. Explain project. Homework: Ask students to journal about their own lifestyle and choices for a set period of time, up to the discretion of the teacher according to time constraints.

Lesson 2
10 minutes

3. Write the following questions from Buettner’s book on the board or on an overhead projector:

• How long can each of us expect to live?
• What really happens to our bodies when we age?
• Why can't we just take a pill to extend our lives?
• How can we live longer?
• How can we live better?
• Why does changing our lifestyles add more good years?

2 .Introduce students to the Blue Zones by listening to NPR pieces "The Island Where People Live Longer" and "Can ‘Blue Zones’ Turn Back the Biological Clock?". As students are listening, have them take notes on what they hear and spend five minutes writing down their reactions at the end.

20 minutes

3. Distribute Blue Zones Excerpt Handout. Have students read the piece and then split them up in to small groups to discuss their findings.
4. Ask students the following questions on the board or on an overhead projector to generate ideas for their small-group discussion
1. What did you read that was interesting?
2. What did you read that was surprising?
3. What did you read that you have questions about?
4. Does your lifestyle and the lifestyles of the people in your life and family
5. Why not?

10 minutes

5. Watch National Geographic Sights and Sounds photo essay.

10 minutes

6. Review reflection question, homework.
   

Reflection question: What is your Ikigai, or, roughly translated “reason for getting up in the morning?

Homework: Ask students to ask someone from their family life or community what their Ikigai is and talk with them about it. Then, write about your own ikigai and that of the subject of your interview. Are they similar to one another?  How do you define the value of someone else’s sense of purpose?

Oral History:

Students can use the process of oral history to critically examine their own lives and habits and to learn about the lives and habits of elders in their community. Click here for an extended lesson plan PDF.

Global Trends and Economic Implications:
Background:
In MARCH 2007, the National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Department of State collaborated on a report “Why Population Aging Matters: A Global Perspective” (PDF)

“In 2006, almost 500 million people worldwide were 65 and older. By 2030, that total is projected to increase to1 billion—1 in every 8 of the earth’s inhabitants.”

1. Have students take ’20 Questions About Global Aging Quiz’ from the U.S. Census Bureau to find out how much you know about worldwide population aging in the early twenty-first century.
2. Have students read Susan Brinkman’s August 13, 2009 article from the Philadelphia Bulletin, “Demographic Time bomb: Global Aging Accelerating” (PDF)
3. Discuss as a class.