By Michael J. Critelli | MakeUsWell Newsletter, 

Building on the “Inner Game” of Eating

Over the last few months, we’ve explored ways to build a healthier relationship with the foods and beverages we consume.

Last week, I introduced the idea of applying “inner game” thinking—breaking down our nutritional choices into their smallest components so we can act on them more purposefully.

This week, I want to push that idea further—by showing how AI-powered experiential learning can make those choices second nature.

Done right, this approach blends education, physical activity, and technology into experiences that reshape habits from the inside out.

Why Experiential Learning Works

I have seen the power of experiential learning many times—especially in the form of scavenger hunts.

In 1993, when my family was renting a home on the Darien side of the Five Mile River—a tidal inlet from Long Island Sound—my wife Joyce created a memorable event.

We invited twelve couples to a canoe-based scavenger hunt. Armed with a list, each team had to find and photograph local wildlife, shoreline plants, and coastal flood defenses.

The winners got a painted canoe paddle, but the real prize was awareness: everyone left more attuned to the fragile beauty of our coastal ecosystem.

That’s the beauty of experiential learning—it doesn’t just give you information. It embeds lessons through action, movement, and shared experience.

How Organizations Are Already Using It

I am involved with three organizations that have embraced this approach in different ways:

• Community Health Centers, Middletown, CT – Where I serve on the affiliate Board of ConferMED. They have a rooftop fruit, vegetable, and herb garden that doubles as a teaching tool for patients, who are taught to tend the garden.
  

• Bishop Kearney High School, Rochester, NY – My alma mater. They now have a campus produce garden—funded in part by a grant I helped secure—which supplies the cafeteria and supports a horticulture curriculum.
  

• PowerMyLearning – A nonprofit where I’m a Board member. They send students home with mobile-based assignments—like cooking projects that teach math. Students record videos of their process, creating a feedback loop that helps teachers see how they learn best.
  

In each case, nutrition, hands-on activity, and education are intertwined—and the results are more lasting than any lecture or handout.

From Gardens to Walking Tours—and Beyond

There’s a next step: adapting the scavenger hunt model to walking-based nutrition learning experiences.

Take Cure Organic Farm in Boulder, CO. They offer customizable tours that explore local food production, composting, animal care, greenhouse operations, and regenerative farming—all in an interactive, movement-based setting.

Now imagine bringing that same energy to any community—urban or rural—using AI as the organizer, motivator, and personal coach.

How AI Supercharges Experiential Learning

AI can take a walking + scavenger hunt + nutrition experience from a one-time novelty to a deeply personalized, habit-shaping health program. Here’s how:

• Personalized routes – AI designs paths, stops, and clue difficulty to fit each participant’s fitness level, diet goals, and schedule.
  

• Real-time recognition – Snap a photo of a plant or food item; AI identifies it instantly, explains its nutrition or ecological role, and suggests healthier alternatives.
  

• Adaptive challenges – The hunt evolves based on your choices, adjusting difficulty, topics, and pace in real time.
  

• Smart gamification – AI rewards streaks, times incentives perfectly, and uses leaderboards to maintain engagement without burnout.
  

• Context awareness – GPS + local data ensure the experience reflects what’s available in your neighborhood, today.
  

• Team & social optimization – AI forms balanced groups, fosters collaboration, and encourages healthy competition.
  

• Long-term tracking – AI monitors participation over time and delivers personalized follow-up goals and reminders.
  

Why Personalization Matters

Not everyone lives near an organic farm or has the time to prepare meals from scratch.

Nutritional advice often fails because it ignores the reality of what’s actually available—and achievable—in someone’s daily life.

AI bridges that gap by combining location intelligence with a global library of best practices.

It can find ways to apply the lessons from Boulder, or a rooftop garden in Middletown, to a food desert in Detroit—or to someone balancing three jobs in a big city.

Instead of telling you to make ideal choices in a perfect world, AI helps you make better choices in the world you actually live in.

It turns abstract goals into actionable steps you can take today, on your own block.

The Bigger Opportunity

We already know nutrition education works better when it’s active, social, and memorable. AI gives us the ability to:

• Scale these experiences to any geography.
  

• Adapt them to each person’s habits and constraints.
  

• Keep the learning alive long after the event ends.
  

Just as that 1993 canoe scavenger hunt left us more connected to our local ecosystem, an AI-powered walking scavenger hunt could leave participants permanently better at spotting healthy opportunities in their everyday lives.

In other words, it’s not just about learning what’s good for you. It’s about training your attention so that healthier choices pop out wherever you go—and doing it in a way that’s fun, active, and tailored to you.

That’s the promise of AI-powered experiential learning. And in the quest for better nutrition, it could be the most human—and effective—tool we have.