GULF SHORES — This week, Gulf Shores City Schools (GSCS) celebrated "Eat the Harvest" where students were encouraged to taste nutritious foods from every color of the rainbow every day at school.

The high school hospitality class incorporated items grown in the school's greenhouse into the meals for the high school and middle school lunches. Elementary students were in competition this week as participation in the week's activities earned points. Activities included learning wearing the "color of the day" and trying new foods.

"For every kid in the class that tries the food, they get a point," Gulf Shores Superintendent Matt Akin said. "It's a part of our nutrition committee, just to try to encourage healthy activities."

Teachers too were in a healthy competition, earning points for different wellness activities such as walking on Wednesday.

While this is the third year of "Eat the Harvest" week, this is the first year for the Auburn Extension Nutrition Bus to visit the schools for the celebration.

The mobile unit visited the elementary school and hosted each class in 30-minute intervals, teaching kids the importance of healthy habits such as washing hands, physical activity and eating healthy, nutritious meals.

Classrooms split up into small groups and students cycled between all the activities on the bus. One group played a relay-race version of cornhole, another added ingredients for smoothie to a blender, others were checking out how well they washed their hands using a black light, while another group was practicing kickboxing.

After each small group tried each activity students gathered outside of the bus while a selected few students drove the Blender Bike, which was a stationary work out bike that powered the base of a blender and blended the smoothies' students had mixed up.

Students then were handed samples of the smoothies they created before they went back to class and the next group came in.

Shavita Warren, with the Mobile Nutrition Lab on the bus, said the bus will not be traveling for the next three months as it will be undergoing repairs and getting serviced with new tools and resources. Some of the more notable additions will be touchscreens throughout the bus and a virtual reality (VR) headset.

"Since they can't escape that virtual world, we can't get rid of it, because that's all the kids know," she said. "Instead of trying to defer, we're trying to encourage them and say 'well, these are [healthier] things you can use it for.'"

One thing the VR headsets will be used for is a culinary program, developed by the Auburn Extension staff, where students can learn how to handle knives, hotplates and certain cooking styles in a game version before putting it to practice and cooking in a real kitchen.

Warren said students could use these skills in one of their other programs that teaches students to read a recipe and prepare a meal in a competition against other students. She said all Auburn Extension programs are free.

Kim Chapman, a nutrition educator on the bus, handled the hand washing station. First she had two student volunteers put a "glitter potion" lotion on their hands.

Next, the volunteer students washed their hands in a sink while the other students sang the ABCs, to make sure they were washing for long enough.

After, the volunteer students held their hands under a black light to see how much of the potion remained on their hands and whether they effectively washed their hands.

"This is teaching them better choices," Chapman said on the hand washing station and other bus activities.

Superintendent Akin said he would like to book the nutrition bus again for next year's "Eat the Harvest" celebration to have more students continue to learn about the importance of healthy living.