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Taste-Test Proposal Project for Students in High School
Lesson 1 Title: Food systems over time – Feeding people throughout history
Objective: Students will begin to explore the method of interdisciplinary thinking through the
concept map activity and have an initial baseline idea of how different topic areas are related to
their hydroponics system. Students will be able to explain what a food system is and what factors
and people are involved. They will also be able to map out changes in agriculture and food
systems over the course of history and pick various human health and environmental impacts that
were present if different food systems over time.
Topics: History, Agriculture
Grade Level: 9th-12th Grade
Time: 84 minutes
External Materials Needed: chalkboard/wipe board, projector, computer, writing utensils, large
sheets of paper
Teaching Tips:
Apart from meeting the lesson objectives, this lesson aims to introduce students to the
complexity of food systems and how as the world changes and develops, so do our food systems.
It is important for the students to begin with this background knowledge of food systems because
it sets up a platform for their project – as technology continues to advances and our population
continues to grow, new methods of agriculture may need to be explored to feed over 7 billion
people while protecting the integrity of our environment.
The introduction should be brief as it is simply introducing the overall project to the students.
The concept mapping activity is necessary for teachers interested in tracking students’ abilities to
think in an interdisciplinary manner. This activity is correlated with the final presentation at the
end of the series. Teachers who are only interested in teaching about food systems, and are not
interested in doing the project proposal portion, will not need to include this activity. If short on
time, the discussion questions included in this activity can be cut down to #1, #2, and #4. The
following lecture/discussion on food systems can be shortened by omitting the discussion about
relationships between culture and food. Additionally, the “Think, Pair, Share” activity can be
taken out and integrated into the lecture portion to save time – this would involve the teacher
prompting the students to think about trends in today’s food system and how they fit into the
categories of production, processing, etc. The group activity on food systems is very important to
the lesson. Cutting out the portions of the lecture mentioned above to allow more time for this
activity is acceptable. If time is still an issue, you can skip the Greece example and go straight to
handing out the different time-periods for students to investigate. Give them at least 10 minutes,
leaving at roughly 5-7 minutes to discuss what they found. The reflection exercise can be
reduced to 5 minutes if needed, or turned into a homework component. If a teacher is not
interested in gauging student learning outcomes, this section may be omitted.
Lesson Plan and Activities:
Introduction 4 min
Introduce to the class that we will be starting a short lesson series that will focus on innovative
agriculture, like hydroponics, and food procurement into their school cafeteria. First, ask the
students if they know what food procurement means.
- Procure v. meaning to obtain something, or gather things with care and effort. Synonyms
include: acquire, get, find, secure, and pick up1
- Food procurement – how and from whom food is purchased by an organization or
institution2
o Example: a local restaurant wants to buy local foods to use when cooking their
dishes
o For this lesson series, we will be investigating how to procure food grown on
the hydroponics system into the school cafeteria
Ask the students why they think it might be important to think about where our food comes
from? Ask the students what they think could be benefits of procuring their grown produce
into the cafeteria. Any challenges associated with this? Start making a list of student answers
on the board. Broadly introduce to the students that we are going to be working on a class project
to develop a proposal that will be presented to their principal about how and why we should
procure the food. We will do an exercise today that will get them thinking about the project, but
we are primarily going to take the first two lessons to gain some background knowledge on
agricultural advancement overtime and its environmental and health impacts.
Concept Mapping Activity 30 min
To start this activity, ask the students to brainstorm a list of topics that they think they will
need to investigate to make this project possible. Once the list is completed, you may choose to
add in the following topics if they were not already mentioned: history, health, environmental
science, politics/policy, biology, math, economics/business, marketing, psychology, English and
public speaking. Tell the students that we are now going to begin an activity called concept
mapping. The goal of concept mapping is to determine how different pieces of information, in
this case our topics, are related to one another. This exercise will help us think about what is
important to know as we start our project. It will also help us develop the best proposal possible
as it shows we thought about it from many angles.
Have the students pair up with someone next to them and begin drawing out a concept map. Each
topic should be accompanied with a brief statement justifying how it is connected to another
topic and the project. With the students, but on the board, draw a circle and inside write “food
procurement”. This is where the students should start their map. Give them 10 minutes with
their partner, to draw a concept map on a large sheet of paper. If students are having a hard time
1 Dictionary.com. (2016). Procure. Retrieved from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/procure 2 Policy Link. (2015). Equitable development toolkit; Local food procurement. Retrieved form
http://www.policylink.org/sites/default/files/edtk_local-food-procurement.pdf
grasping the concept, provide an example on the board linking two of the topics together (ex.
math – calculate yields to know how much the system can produce). Once the maps are drawn,
ask the following discussions.
Discussion Questions:
1. Were any of the topics hard to connect with our project? Which topic was the hardest to
connect?
2. Which topics were the easiest to connect to the project?
3. Which topic are each of you most excited about working on or learning more about?
4. Which topic is the most important? Is there one?
a. We want students to realize the importance of including these topics into the
project to get the most cohesive proposal
5. Is there a topic you think we should start with first?
Though question five may raise some answers that do not align with the topics covered in this
lesson, it is important to hear what students believe is the right path for starting this project. If
their answer is something other than history, tell them that we are going to initially start with
history as it will provide a good foundation and background for the project, but will move into
those other topics over the course of the 9 weeks.
History of Food Systems Lecture 10 min
Start by asking the students if they know what a food system is. After you hear their answers,
tell them that a food system encompasses all the activities that go into producing, processing,
transporting, and eating foods3. Write the follow words on the board: Production, processing,
transportation, consumption. Ask the students to start shouting out people, things, and actions
that are involved under each category. They should be thinking about the various
people/industries/business/activities/processes that are part of making each step possible.
Students can copy down answers in their notebooks. Here are some examples to share if needed:
Production: Farmers, farm workers/farm hands, planting seeds, watering, fertilizers, using
pesticides, picking/harvesting, washing, selling, etc.
Processing: Factories, factory workers, chemicals, machinery, additives, food safety measures
(FDA, USDA), etc.
Transportation: truck drivers, trucks, gasoline; food taking to wholesale distribution centers
then to processing plants or straight to the grocery store.
Consumption: Grocery stores, workers, farmer’s markets, food trucks, bake sales, selecting
foods based on appearance, buying, preparing, cooking, freezing, storing, eating, etc.
3 University of Oxford. (2016). What is the food system? Retrieved from http://www.futureoffood.ox.ac.uk/what-
food-system
***The food system also includes governance, economics of food production, food production
sustainability, and how food production affects environmental and human health. Food is linked
with our well-being concerning nutrition, obesity, and food safety.
Culture and food: A food system can also have cultural roots. Ask the students if any of them
can think of how culture and food could be related. If they are struggling to come up with
answers, you could explain how countries in Asia eat rice with almost every meal, or in India
they typically sit on the floor and eat with their hands, sometimes off a banana leaf! In European
countries, portions are a lot smaller than in the US, but you are expected to order multiple
courses. Each of these dining styles differs because of the people who live in these countries and
the history and cultures they’ve grown up in.
Think, Pair, Share Activity 5 min
In groups of 2-3, have students discuss the following questions: How would you describe our
food system today? What things stand out? What does farming look like? (This should dig
deeper than the parts listed on the board) What is the culture of our food system in the United
States? Give students 5 minutes to discuss in their small groups and then have them share their
thoughts to the entire class. If they get stuck, here are some things unique to today’s food system
to provoke their thinking:
- Fast food restaurants, drive thru
- Frozen meals you can make in a microwave in under five minutes
- Shift from sitting around a dining room table to eating in front of the TV
- We eat with silverware
- A typical meal may include a meat, potato, and vegetable
- Big farms growing tons of food and raising thousands of animals
- Farms use lots of fertilizers to make the food grow quick
- Import a lot of food from other states and countries – lots of variety to try new things
- Foods have lots of additives – lots of processed foods, pre-made
- Many different brands of foods sold in many different grocery stores
- "Melting pot" of international cuisines and traditions available
The point is to get a sense of how “fast” our food system is. We want everything fast, made fast,
ordered fast, consumed fast. But, that is not how it has always been. Our grandparents and great
grandparents ate less processed foods, sat around the dinner table and talked about their day, and
farms where a lot smaller and typically fed your family. After the industrial revolution, there
were huge changes in food systems: innovations in farm machinery, building of railroads to
transport foods, improving refrigeration systems, and inventing packaging materials to keep
foods fresh longer. This is when we began to see the indirection of processed foods4. Again, our
food systems met change in the 1950s during the Green Revolution where use of fertilizers and
4 AAS Online Exhibition. (2008). Big business: Food production, processing & distribution in the North 1850-1900.
Retrieved from http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Exhibitions/Food/
pesticides that dramatically increased crop yields all over the world. Tell the students you’d like
to do an activity where we investigate food systems over time.
Food Systems Activity 30 min
As previously said, our food systems have evolved and are going to keep evolving and changing
as new technology and fads pop up. A food system during the time of the pilgrims is going to
look a lot different than a food system in ancient Greece, or a food system of the future. Tell the
students we are going to first start the activity together, and then they can try it out on their
own. The goal is to try and define a food system for different periods in time. On the board, pull
up the photo of the Ancient Greece marketplace and write our four parts of the food system back
on the board (production, processing, transportation, and consumption). With the students, start
trying to fill in the different parts of the system and talk about why the parts are the way they are.
One example is people are shopping in an open market where meat is hanging from stands –
there were no brick and mortar stores in Ancient Greece nor were there refrigerators. Ask the
students if this poses any health concerns. (Adding in questions that tie their answers into issues
of the environmental, health, farming techniques, etc. are important for them to understand why
the food system looks the way it does and how it has certain affects).
After going over Greece, break the students into groups and have them try and do the same thing
for three other time periods. They will each be given a picture or two to look at, the location of
the region they are exploring, and a list of foods commonly eaten during that period so they can
think about how they were grown, processed, transported, and eaten. Answer keys are provided
for each time-period, but the answers provided are not the only answers they could come up
with. Students are not expected to already be experts on these different time periods and regions;
however, they should be able to think critically on their own, and the teacher may use the answer
key to help provide some clue or pieces of information that will get them over any knowledge
barriers. There is no answer key for the “future food systems” since the future is unknown and
the images chosen are just some of the ideas out there. Students in this group should be very
creative and thoughtful when thinking about where food systems could end up in the years to
come. (The teacher may need to facilitate questions related to each time-period so having a basic
understanding is important before teaching).
Once the students finish, ask each group to present what they came up with.
Reflection Exercise 5 min
To wrap up the lesson, there is a brief reflection exercise to gauge student comprehension of
today’s learning objectives. Have the students turn to the last page in their notebooks and answer
the following questions to be turned in at the end of class (potential answers have been provided
for the teacher’s eyes only):
1. What are the biggest changes you have seen in today’s food system versus food systems
of the past? What been some of the factors that have helped facilitate these changes over
time?
a. Technology, machinery, “fast” food movement, transportation abilities, options
from all over the world, development of mankind, fertilizers and other advances
in agriculture, etc.
2. Would you take anything from previous food systems and reintroduce it into our current
food system? Are there aspects, whether from an efficiency, environmental or human
health aspect that you would take from other systems and incorporate into our food
system today or in the future?
3. How would you explain the concept of a food system to someone who knows nothing
about the topic? What key things would you point out as examples or important parts?
4. Why is it important to think about the food system that produces the food we eat at our
school?
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/b6/45/0c/b6450cb1f311a67a42603f9f644bb77b.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/40/2f/c0/402fc096c46f61938a1994af59dd64a6.gif
http://geology.com/world/map/map-of-greece.gif
Ancient Greece – 500
BC
Common Foods:
Grains – Wheat, Barley
Fruits – olives, grapes, figs
Vegetables
Breads
Cake
Goat cheese and goat milk
Beans
Fish
Wine
https://exploringycity.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/crnkovich-adena-
http://geology.com/world/map/map-of-the-united-states-of-america.gifculture.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/d7/62/16/d76216c153d59bb16e8bd97939a2b5b6.jpg
Native Americans 1600s
Common Foods:
Indian corn known as maize
Beans
Vegetables – Squash, Pumpkins, Peppers,
Fruits – strawberries, blueberries, raspberries
Tomatoes
Peanuts, Pine nuts, cashews, acrons
Sunflowers
Wild Rice
Potatoes/Sweet Potatoes
Meat – buffalo, elk, deer, rabbit, fish, duck,
turkey, turtle
India – Present Day
http://travel.rickray.com/wp-content/gallery/rajasthan-india-2011/Market%20 scene%20in%20Udaipur.jpg
http://www.cookiesound.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mechua-market-scene-streets-kolkata-west-bengal-india-1.jpg
http://geology.com/world/map/map-of-india.gif
http://questgarden.com/134/00/0/111025173450/images/south%20indian%20food2.jpg
Common Foods:
Wheat, Barley
Rice
Tamarind (like a fruit/bean)
Spices – cumin, coriander, turmeric root, ginger
Vegetables – eggplant, cucumber, onion, tomato
Potatoes
Beans, lentils, chickpeas
Chili peppers
Coconut
Fruit – banana, mango, papaya, apple
Curry leaves
Flat breads – chapatti
Paneer (cheese)
http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/detroit-hanz-farm.jpg
http://www.irishexaminer.com/remote/media.central.ie/media/images/z/zzzFutureofFarming4_large.jpg?width=648&s=ie-363583
https://www.technocracy.news/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/robot-farming.jpg
http://foodal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/farming-on-the-red-planet.jpg
The Future of Food Systems
? Common Foods:
Food Systems Worksheet
Name: Date:
Time-Period:
Directions: Use this worksheet alongside the provided handout to fill in the different parts of the
food system unique to your region and time-period.
Production:
Processing:
Transportation:
Consumption:
Environmental Costs/Benefits:
Human Health Costs/Benefits:
Food Systems Worksheet - ANSWER KEY Time-Period: Ancient Greece
Background: visit http://historylink101.com/2/greece3/food.htm and
http://www.ducksters.com/history/ancient_greece/food.php to gain a background on Ancient
Greece’s food system and culture.
Production: Food was grown on the rocky terrain of Greece and fish was the main meat. Small
farms would grow their foods, harvest them, and take them to the market. No fertilizers or
pesticides would have been used. Catching fish would have been through nets and spears. Beef
and pork was barely eaten because it was expensive, but you could find it at a market.
Processing: There were no processing facilities, so foods like bread, cheese, and wine had to be
made by hand or with basic tools within a family’s home. People were able to specialize so not
every family would be required to make their own goods. Meat had to be slaughtered and
butchered by the farmer – it was not done at any type of facility. Milk was only used for making
cheese, it was not drunk. Remember, there were no refrigerators so food could not last very long
without going bad.
Transportation: You could use livestock like a horse or donkey to transport food otherwise it
was done on foot carrying baskets. Remember, there were no cars.
Consumption: Shopped at the local market; cooked their foods at home (no restaurants), and ate
food with their hands. Wine was the primary drink and you would typically dip your bread into
it. Men and women typically ate food in separate rooms. Bread was sometimes used as a napkin.
Poor people in the cities mainly got their meat from festivals where animal sacrifices would be
made to the Gods and the meat would be handed out after.
Environmental Costs/Benefits: Agriculture did not heavily impact the environment
Human Health Costs/Benefits: The Greeks ate with their hands so there was a higher chance of
getting sick if you did not wash your food or your hands. Markets were open-air markets where
the meat would hang, unrefrigerated and flies and other insects could get on the meat. Open
markets could attract rodents carrying disease
Food Systems Worksheet – ANSWER KEY Time-Period: Native Americans 1600s
Background: visit http://www.native-languages.org/food.htm to gain a background on the Native
American’s food system and culture.
Production: Native Americans were mainly hunters and gatherers, with the addition of fishing
and farming. After the Europeans arrived, Native Americans did start to adapt practices of
raising domesticated animals. They grew their foods in their villages and lived near waterways to
have access to fish and other water animals like mussels. Women typically collected fruits like
berries while the men hunted animals. Hunting took lots of coordinating and working together,
making “production” of food a village wide endeavor.
Processing: The Native American’s ate the foods they hunted and gathered that day, especially
the meats. Some foods like grains could be stored for longer periods of time, but remember there
were no refrigerators so foods like meats could not last very long without going bad. Women did
most of the cooking and food would be cooked over open fire, on top of heated rocks. Foods
were grinded in bowls and water was added to make different pastes, soups, or other meals with
an oatmeal consistency.
Transportation: A horse could be used to carry foods, but since their farms where so close,
women could carry food in cloth bags or baskets while men would drag their day’s hunt back
from the forest. Baskets were woven by women and could be woven tight enough to transport
water.
Consumption: Native Americans were not wasteful and would turn animal bones into crud
spoons. They also carved out bowls and knives from bones and wood. Since the tribes lived so
close together and worked together to procure their foods, the food would typically be eaten
together.
Environmental Costs/Benefits: Native Americans lived off the land and in harmony with it,
with practically no threat to the environment.
Human Health Costs/Benefits: There was little knowledge of food borne illnesses so people
could have eaten foods that were very unsafe to eat; however, their diets were very natural and
well balanced. They were eating from almost every food group and staying physically fit.
Food Systems Worksheet – ANSWER KEY Time-Period: India Present Day
Background: visit http://www.culturewavesglobal.com/india-etiquette-,
http://aquaponicsinindia.com/farming-systems-in-india/, and http://www.livescience.com/28634-
indian-culture.html to gain a background on India’s food system and culture.
Production: Food is grown in rural parts of each state on various types of farms. Plantation
farms are common and are used to grow one type of crop over a large area (ex. coffee, tea,
bamboo, etc.). Other types of farms are dedicated to multiple crops and can be large, commercial
farms, or smaller family farms. Farmers will grow their foods and bring them into a city where
they can sell directly to consumers, or send their food to a large marketplace where a middle man
will do the bargaining and selling. Farmers in India do not always have access to proper
equipment and work very large pieces of land with only basic tools and simple plows pulled by
cows. Driving through rural India one would see people in fields for miles and miles, slowly
planting and harvesting their crops. Access to resistant seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides can only
be afforded by wealthy land owners or plantation owners.
Processing: For the average Indian, food is purchased from the market and used in making their
meals. Vegetables, fruits, and spices come in raw form and are transformed into meals by the
woman in the house (most commonly). Since Indian meals are somewhat complex in their
ingredient list, pre-processed foods are not as common, though they are available at grocery
stores, but these goods are influenced by western culture of food buying.
Transportation: Food can be transported via a wagon pulled by cows or horses, but trucks are
very popular methods of transportation as well. The roads in India get rougher as you head out
into rural areas, so if a truck breaks down, it could be a while before it is back on the road. In the
photos, you can see how much food is brought and sold at the markets, so you can only imagine
how much transportation was involved in getting it there.
Consumption: As previously stated, women in the family will go to the market and pick out the
fruit, vegetables, and spices they may need for their meals. Depending on the wealth of a family,
a refrigerator may or may not be available for use. Foods are very spicy, and many Indians are
vegetarian. Food is eaten with your hands and the flat breads are used as “spoons” to scoop up
the different foods.
Environmental Costs/Benefits: The markets cannot sell all the food you see in the pictures. As
food gets older in date, prices may be lowered for poorer individuals to afford, but much of the
food gets wasted. Food waste is a large contributor to global warming as decaying food can
produce greenhouse gases. Depending on which farming practices are used, India’s agriculture
sector can have mixed impacts on the environment. They do utilize various irrigation methods to
distribute water to crops, and without the use of large machinery, they have low CO2 emissions;
however, transportation by truck can increase CO2 emission since food is coming from rural
areas.
Human Health Costs/Benefits: Much like Ancient Greece, open market spaces can become
breeding grounds for rodents carrying diseases. Indians also allow cows and wild dogs to freely
roam around so you might find a cow munching on food in the market. Much of the food cooked
in India has health benefits, as it is very vegetable-based and spices have good digestion
properties. There are high levels of poverty in India, as well as poor water quality, leading to
many individuals dying due to malnutrition and water borne illnesses.
Reflection Questions Name: _________________________ Date:_______
Directions: In 2-3 sentences, answer the following questions on your own and turn them in
before you leave.
1. What are the biggest changes you have seen in today’s food system versus food systems
of the past? What been some of the factors that have helped facilitate these changes over
time?
2. Would you take anything from previous food systems and reintroduce it into our current
food system? Are their aspects, whether from an efficiency, environmental or human
health aspect that you would take from other systems and incorporate into our food
system today or in the future?
3. How would you explain the concept of a food system to someone who knows nothing
about the topic? What key things would you point out as examples or important parts?
4. Why is it important to think about the food system that produces the food we eat at our
school?
Examples of Concept Maps
http://thegreenslate.com/p/2016/09/concept-map-template-drhqftse.png
http://www.met.sjsu.edu/~cordero/ozone/Learn_Act1_files/image001.gif
Lesson 2 Title: The Shift to Urban Agriculture – Feeding our Cities
Objective: Students will understand what urbanization is and the affects it has had on our food
system, the environment, and rural communities. They will be able to see that populations are
residing heavily in urban and suburban areas in many countries, including the United States.
Student will understand what food miles are and how hydroponics, and other innovative methods
of agriculture, should be explored as new methods of urban agriculture that can help feed our
cities, suburbs, and even rural areas.
Topics: Environmental Science, Health, Math
Grade Level: 9th-12th Grade
Time: 84 minutes
External Materials Needed: chalkboard/white board, white board markers, projector, computer,
writing utensils, calculators
Teaching Tips:
All students, whether they live in a rural or urban setting, should understand the impacts of
urbanization on our food system and how food miles are high in both regions. With our food
coming from miles and miles away, students should begin to see the environmental and human
health impacts of transitioning to local foods. This lesson is structured to make students more
aware of where their food is coming from and how rural and urban settings both have unique
roles in our country’s food system.
This lesson is jammed packed with material that is important for students to understand, but for
classes with less time available, the following suggestions can be used to shorten the lesson. The
interactive map activity is composed of two parts where one is teacher-guided and the other is
student-guided-group-work. The student group work component can be removed to save time.
The food mile skit is the lengthiest section in the lesson and there are a few ways to shorten it: 1)
only have students act out one or two of the meals, 2) omit the information pertaining to CO2
and greenhouse gas emissions, and 3) do not do the skit portion at all and only have students
draw out the food miles on the white board. These suggestions can help to halve the amount of
time needed to teach the section while still helping to get the concepts across. For the
lecture/discussion on local food movements, you can have the students discuss what foods they
believe could be grown with each method (more time consuming) or you could strictly do a
lecture and provide all the information with little student input (less time consuming). You could
also combine hydroponics and aquaponics as they share similar characteristics. It is important to
leave enough time for students to complete the reflection exercise, even if you need to cut the
time down to 5-7 minutes. This exercise can also be turned in as homework, but the students will
not be able to work in groups if that is the case.
Lesson Plan and Activities:
Introduction 4 min
Begin class by doing a short recap of what was discussed during the last lesson…feel free to ask
the students directly to summarize what they learned. Go over again what a food system is and
what has been changing about them over time. Transition into today’s lesson by telling the
students we are going to explore urbanization and how it has affected our environment and
health.
Urbanization 10 min
First, ask the students if they know what urbanization is. Remind the students as they try to
answer that urbanization is a process and not a place. Provide them with the definition after a few
minutes of guessing:
Urbanization is “the mass movement of people from rural areas to more densely
populated [environments]…and the growth of cities is the response to this evolutionary change”5
When we think of an urban place, however, we do think of densely populated areas, apartment
style housing, an industrial core, and different ethnic neighborhoods throughout the setting.
Urbanization took place in the United States during the Gilded Age (1800s-1900s) and the
Progressive Era (1890s-1920s) when people started moving out of the country in hopes of higher
paying jobs in the cities. By 1900, 30% of the country’s population lived in the cities (approx. 30
million people).6 The middle class benefitted from this shift as more and more small businesses
needed to be started to support the influx of people, but for poor individuals, including mainly
European immigrants, it involved harsh and dangerous working conditions in factories, mills,
slaughterhouses, and working on the railroads. “Rural flight” took a negative tole on rural
communities because as more people left, the size of the labor force sharply decreased meaning
less businesses, schools, etc.7 By the 1950s, we had established our cities, but now people
wanted to live outside the cities and suburbia was formed. With the use of cars and the creation
of highways, people could now afford to live outside the city in housing plans and commute to
work. Let’s look at how many people are living in urban areas today, (remember, it was
approx. 30 million people in the 1900s, roughly 30%).
Interactive Data and Map Activity 10 min
Using the 2016 World Population Data Sheet8 page 11, find the data for the United States. In
2016, the population is roughly 323.9 million people, with 81% of the population (roughly 258
million people) living in an urban environment. Ask the students what cities they think these
5 College Board. (2008). AP U.S. History: Urbanization. Retrieved from
http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/US_History_Urbanization_SF.pdf 6 Annenberg Learner. (2015). Immigration, urbanization, and identity: The progressive era city. Retrieved from
http://www.learner.org/courses/lens/collections/immigration-urbanization/ 7 Boundless. (2016). The process of urbanization. Retrieved from
https://www.boundless.com/sociology/textbooks/boundless-sociology-textbook/population-and-urbanization-
17/urbanization-and-the-development-of-cities-123/the-process-of-urbanization-695-3433/ 8 Population Reference Bureau. (2016). 2016 world population data sheet. Retrieved from
http://www.prb.org/pdf16/prb-wpds2016-web-2016.pdf
people are living in – Have them also guess how many people live there. Write their answers on
the board. You can provide them with these names and numbers after – Data from 20159:
#1. New York City, NY – over 8 million
#2. Los Angeles, CA – almost 4 million
#3. Chicago, IL – 2.7 million
#4. Houston, TX – 2.2 million
#5. Philadelphia, PA – 1.5 million
How did they do? Point out the gap between #1 and #2, there is almost a 4-million-person gap!
That’s huge. To make the idea of urbanization stick even more, show the students the online
interactive map10 depicting how many fly over states it would take to equal the population of our
country’s biggest city, the LA county, Texas, New Jersey, the East and West Coast combined,
and then little old Wyoming with the smallest population of them all. When using the map, have
students come up one at a time and pick the combination they are most interested in seeing. This
will engage them in the learning process and keep them interested. Ask them what they find to
be the most shocking. Ask them if this map is a good depiction of urbanization.
Group exercise 10 min
Have the students go back to the World Population Data Sheet (pages 10-19). In groups, give
them a few minutes to pick 5 other countries and calculate the number of people in the
population living in urban areas. The countries should each be from different regions (i.e.
Western Asia vs. Northern Europe). Challenge them to find the smallest number possible and
the greatest number possible to determine which countries may still have a bulk of their
population living in rural areas. When the students finish, ask them to share what they found.
Are there characteristics of the countries they picked that support why their urban percentage
is so high or low? Are most urban areas more than 750,000 residents or less?
Transition to next topic: So, with most a country’s population living in urban settings, we need
to think about where they are getting their food and how rural communities are affected.
Urbanization and Food Miles 10 min
Let’s think about how urbanization may affect our food system, the environment, and human
health. If everyone is in the cities (urban areas), where are they buying their foods? List out
some of the students answers on the board (grocery store, restaurant, fast food restaurants, gas
station, etc.). In the students’ home town, where do their families typically go to buy food? Are
9 Nations Online Project. (2015). Top 50 of the most populated cities in the United States. Retrieved from
http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/most_pop_cities_usa.htm 10 Slate. (2014). Manifest destiny: Equal population mapper. Retrieved from
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2014/10/population_map_use_our_interactive_map_to_figure_out_ho
w_many_flyover_states.html
there any local farmer’s markets to buy local foods? If people are buying food in stores or at a
restaurant, the food is most likely be being grown outside of the local area and transferred into
their region. Point out to the students that urbanization affects rural areas as well. Most of the
food they buy, unless they only purchase foods from farmer’s markets, is not coming from local
farms, but from other states and countries. Urban and rural areas are both consuming food that is
grown hundreds or thousands of miles away; however, for the specific case of people living in
urban settings, they are relying on rural farmers to grow their foods. One big way that
urbanization has affected rural communities has been through the high demand for food in urban
areas. Nowadays, the number of small family farms is decreasing, and the number of large,
conventional farms out in the warmer states are dominating food production.
Ask students if they have ever seen food literally growing in a big city? Probably not. As stated
in our previous lesson, our food is typically coming from large farms out in rural areas (perhaps
even in the students’ hometown if it is rural) and being transported to different wholesale
retailers, distribution centers, processing facilities, and then to grocery stores. Just because
students may live by a farm, does not mean that the food grown is the food on the shelves at the
grocery store. There are many miles in between the location it was grown and location it is
bought. Ask the students if they can guess what the phrase “food miles” means. Once they
give their ideas, make sure to add in the fact that it is a unit that includes the fuel involved in
transporting the food product.
Food Mile – a mile over which a food item is transported from producer to consumer, as a unit of
measurement of the fuel used to do this
Ask the students why it matters to look at how much fuel is used in getting our corn from
the field onto our plate? How is that important? Well “food miles” is a concept used by
environmental scientists to determine the ecological footprint a food is having on our
environment. The further away a food is coming, the more fuel that must be burned to get it here.
If students are familiar with the environmental concept, explain that the gas we put in our car
burns and gives off different gases (NOx, SOx, and CO2) that contribute to climate change and
the build-up of greenhouse gases. Additionally, increased pollution from trucks, planes, and cars
can affect air quality which can lead to health problems in humans (respiratory conditions –
particularly dangerous to young children and the elderly).
Food Mile Skit 20 min
This skit will be used to help students explore the food miles of some of their favorite foods. We
will look at processed foods that include more than one ingredient so that multiple students are
involved (it is great to align at least one of the examples with the main meal in the cafeteria that
day). Start with products that include foods grown in the US, then act out other products that
may include food from overseas.
Set up: Project a map of the US (and then the world) onto a dry erase board and have some
markers ready for the students to use. On the map, draw a star to represent the location of your
school. Around the room place, place different signs with different mileage markers on them that
represent distances food have traveled. Students will start in the front of the classroom so make
sure the closest miles are near the front, with the furthest distance in the back. See diagram
below:
Directions: The students will act out different scenarios for food miles. Students in various
groups will be given a name tag of a certain food or ingredient and where it was grown. The
students that make up the processed food will initially stand together in the front of the class (this
represent the star on the map, or the location of your school/city where the food item was
purchased). Students will then individually be called out by their ingredient. The individual
student knows the location and distance of where their food was grown (written on the back of
their name tag), but the rest of the class must decide where they think each ingredient was
originally produced. After the students take some time to guess, the student who knows the right
answer will share where they were grown, and how many miles it is away from the school
(mileage will need to be calculated before the lesson starts). Once the student reveals the answer,
they are to put a dot on the map on the board, draw a line from their dot to the star, and then head
to the location in the classroom that represents where they were grown (they may be at a mileage
marker or in between two; if students want to go to different corners to represent directionality
they can do that as well). Once each student goes, the group should head to the mileage market
that represents the total miles for their meal. State capitals where used to determine mileage;
however, the foods may be grown elsewhere in the country. Here are some example scenarios to
use (Example generating using Union City HS, Union City, PA as reference point:
1. Tonight’s dinner: Chicken, potatoes, and green beans (4 students) – 3,568 miles
a. One student holds a picture of this meal
Front of Classroom
Location of whiteboard
Student
Desk/Tables
Student
Desk/Tables
Student
Desk/Tables
Student
Desk/Tables Student
Desk/Tables
Student
Desk/Tables
Student
Desk/Tables
Student
Desk/Tables
Student
Desk/Tables
b. Chicken: In 2010, Georgia was the top state for raising broiler chickens, almost 7
billion pounds of live chicken11
i. 822 miles from Atlanta, GA to Union City High School
c. Potatoes: In 2011, Idaho planted over 320,000 acres of potatoes. Fun fact, the
average American consumes around 140 pounds of potatoes each year!12
i. 2,137 miles from Boise, ID to Union City High School
d. Green Beans: Wisconsin is one of the top states for green beans – the US was
ranked 15th in the world for green bean production, a whopping 43,570 tons, or
1% of the total world’s production13
i. 609 miles from Madison Wisconsin to Union City High School
2. Tomorrow’s Lunch Menu: Cheeseburger with ketchup and a side of onion rings (6
students) – 6,764 miles
a. One student holds a picture of a burger
b. Burger: Texas has the most cattle in the US, 11.8 million heads of cattle making
up 13% of all cattle in the US14
i. 1,491 miles from Austin, TX to Union City High School
c. Bun: Bread is made from yeast, and in Hattiesburg, Mississippi there is a
company called USA Yeast that sells baker’s yeast15
i. 1,050 miles from Hattiesburg, MI to Union City High School
d. Cheese: Wisconsin is the largest producer of cheese in the country, 2.8 billion
pounds with California not far behind at 2.3 billion pounds16. That’s a lot of
cheese!
i. 609 miles from Madison Wisconsin to Union City High School
e. Onions: Farmers plant over 6.2 billion pounds of onions each year, that is approx.
125,000 acres across the country. Our onions for this burger can from Oregon17
i. 2,609 miles from Salem, OR to Union City High School
f. Tomatoes for ketchup: California is the top producer of tomatoes, however,
California and Florida combined make up over 2/3 of the total produced tomatoes
in the country!18
11 National Chicken Council. (2010). Top broiler producing states. Retrieved from
http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/statistics/top-broiler-producing-states/ 12 Idaho Farm Bureau Federation. (2016). Idaho potatoes. Retrieved from
http://www.idahofb.org/index.php?action=commodities.potatoes 13 Ranking America. (2011). The U.S. ranks 15th in green bean production. Retrieved from
https://rankingamerica.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/the-u-s-ranks-15th-in-green-bean-production/ 14 Cook, R. (2015). Cattle inventory: Ranking of all 50 states. Retrieved from http://www.cattlenetwork.com/advice-
and-tips/cowcalf-producer/cattle-inventory-ranking-all-50-states 15 USA Yeast. (2016). USA Yeast. Retrieved from http://usayeast.com/ 16 World Atlas. (2016). Cheese production in the US by state. Retrieved from http://www.worldatlas.com/articles
/us-cheese-production-top-10-states.html 17 National Onion Association. (2011). U.S. production and availability. Retrieved from https://www.onions-
usa.org/foodservice/us-production-and-availability 18 Agricultural Marketing Resource Center. (2015). Tomatoes. Retrieved from http://www.agmrc.org/commodities-
products/vegetables/tomatoes/
i. 1,005 miles from Tallahassee, FL to Union City High School
3. Snack time: Fruit Salad (5 students) – 19,257 miles
a. One student holds a picture of a fruit salad
b. Grapes: California produced 6.8 million tons of grapes in 201419
i. 2,488 miles from Sacramento, CA to Union City High School
c. Kiwi: Italy is the top producer of Kiwi in the world 365,000 metric tons20.
i. 4,489 miles from Union City, PA to Italy
d. Bananas: India produced 24,000,000 tons of bananas 201221
i. 7,906 miles from India to Union City, PA
e. Blueberries: The US is the top producers of blueberries, but the blueberries from
our fruit salad are coming from Poland who produces 13,000 tons a year22
i. 4,374 miles from North West, PA to Poland
After the activity, refer students to the page in their notebooks that addresses greenhouse gas
emissions in relation to food miles. Point out on the table how our fruit salad that traveled the
most miles also produced the most greenhouse gas emissions, even though the plane gave off
less CO2 per mile. Make sure students see that the three, simple meals were examined produced
over 74,000 pounds’ worth of CO2 (numbers to vary with school locations).
Table 1. Greenhouse gas emissions = Distance X Weight X Emissions Factor23
Meal Miles Emissions
Factor
Total Emissions Total Emissions
(Metric Tons)
Chicken Dinner 3,568 Truck- 1,700
grams of
CO2/mile
6,065,600 grams
of CO2
6.07 metric tons
of CO2
Cheeseburger
and Onion Rings
6,764 Truck- 1,700
grams of
CO2/mile
11,498,800
grams of CO2
11.5 metric tons
of CO2
Fruit Salad 19,257 Plane- 868.3
grams of
CO2/mile
16,720,853
grams of CO2
16.72 metric
tons of CO2
** For Metric Tons, you divide the total emissions by 1,000,000.
If you think about all the emissions that come from the vehicles that transport the various
ingredients in the foods we eat daily, you can imagine why it is important for us to think about
19 19 Agricultural Marketing Resource Center. (2015). Grapes. Retrieved from http://www.agmrc.org/commodities-
products/fruits/grapes/ 20 Top 5 Of Anything. (2016). The top 5 kiwi producing countries. Retrieved from https://top5ofanything.com/
list/008563c9/Kiwi-Producing-Countries 21 Country Ranker. (2014). Top 10 largest producers of bananas. Retrieved from http://www.countryranker.com/
world-top-10-largest-producers-countries-of-bananas/ 22 World Atlas. (2016). Where are blueberries grown? Retrieved from http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-top-
blueberry-growers-in-the-world.html 23 Mather, J, Craft, E., Norsworthy, M., & Wolfe, C. (2016). The green freight handbook. Retrieved from
http://business.edf.org/files/2014/07/EDF-Green-Freight-Handbook.pdf
ways to decrease food miles traveled. Ask the students if they have any ideas. What about
switching to local food?
Transition to Local Food Movement and Urban Agriculture 10 min
Over the past year, there has been a push for local food movements where food from local
farmers is going straight into a nearby city/town’s food system; however, how do we get local
food into large urban centers and cities where there is no room for large farms? The concept
of farming in cities is called urban agriculture and it can take on many farms. Community
gardens have been popping up all over cities, but with zoning rules (these define where gardens
can be in a city) and the high cost of demolishing buildings, we need to explore how to use
existing infrastructure to support indoor forms of agriculture like hydroponics, especially in areas
where winters are too cold to grow foods.
Go over with the students some various methods of urban agriculture and start a discussion about
which ones they like the most. Pictures are provided to share with the students so they have
visual ideas of what each method looks like. Have the students brainstorm what types of foods
they think would grow best in each environment.
1. Community Gardens
a. Taking abandoned plots of land between buildings and converting them into
gardens
b. Different gardens will have different structures, but some give each member their
own bed to plant food for their household while others have communal beds
where food is grown and available for anyone to come and take/eat.
c. Foods grown here: plants that don’t need a lot of attention – various fruits,
vegetables, herbs, oats, wheat, etc. Tomatoes, squash, peas, beans, eggplant,
onions, asparagus, peppers, beets, carrots, garlic24
2. Roof top gardens
a. Converting a roof top of an apartment complex or other building into a
community garden to be used by the residents or workers that reside there
b. Foods grown here: Plants with compact forms and avoid anything with extensive
vining systems or oversized fruits. Plants should be tolerant to wind and hot
conditions. Use shallow-rooted edibles like lettuce, radishes, peppers, herbs,
cabbage. You can plant vegetables that need more room in larger pots/containers
like beets, carrots, onions, bush beans, eggplants. Fruit trees can also be grown in
deeper pots with smaller fruit plants in hanging baskets (strawberries)25.
3. Hydroponics
a. Taking agriculture indoors, you can grow food during the winter months
24 The Creative Vegetable Gardener. (2016). What to grow in your community garden plot. Retrieved from
http://www.creativevegetablegardener.com/grow-community-garden-plot/ 25 Andrews, J. (2017). Urban edibles for rooftop gardens. Retrieved from
https://www.gardendesign.com/vegetables/rooftops.html
b. Can be very energy intensive – solar or alternative energy sources should be
explored
c. Can grow horizontally or vertically
d. Ask students what they have learned about their system and the benefits of
growing food in this manner.
e. Foods grown here: herbs, vegetables, fruits. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, green
beans, squash, melons, broccoli and cauliflower, lettuces, spinach, swiss chard,
peas, onions, carrots, etc.26
4. Aquaponics
a. Again, the same points mentioned as hydroponics, but you now can introduce fish
into your system with widens your market and foods produced
b. Could be more expensive because you need to not only maintain the crops, but the
fish as well
c. Foods grown here27:
i. Fish: tilapia, blue gill, sunfish, crappie, koi, goldfish, carp perch, catfish,
largemouth bass
ii. Plants: leafy lettuce, kale, swiss chard, arugula, basil, mint, watercress,
chives, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, beans, peas, squash, bananas, sweet
corn, onions, etc.
5. Vertical farming
a. Growing inside buildings – each floor could represent different crops or stages of
the growing process (i.e. starter plants on top floor and you keep moving down)
b. Startup can be in the millions – lights, equipment, water, seed/seed starters,
electricity/energy bills all are expensive; though, there are innovative ways to cut
cost depending on the materials you choose to use and what scale you are growing
on
c. If you add in other products, you can use the byproducts of one to fuel another
d. Have the grocery store or restaurant downstairs - foods are produced on site
e. Foods grown here: Vegetables that “climb”: tomatoes, varieties of green beans,
pole beans and peas, cucumbers, compact pumpkins, melons, and squash. Also,
leafy vegetables28.
It might be hard for urban agriculture to replace traditional farming, but it could have strong
impacts on human health and the local food movement. Ask the students if they believe if any of
these methods could also be beneficial in rural areas and communities? How could these
methods be used in these settings? There is benefit to introduce these methods into rural areas
26 Modcularhydro.com. (2011). What can you grow hydroponically? Retrieved from
http://modularhydro.com/ArticleLibrary/WhatCanYouGrowHydroponically.html 27 Nelson and Pade (2017). Recommended pants and fish in aquaponics. Retrieved from
http://aquaponics.com/recommended-plants-and-fish-in-aquaponics/ 28 SF Gate. (n.d.). The best vegetables to grow for vertical planting. Retrieved from
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/vegetables-grow-vertical-planting-69893.html
because it encourages locally grown food without the reliance of large, rural farms. These
methods allow all types of people to be involved in growing their food without owning a large
farm.
Reflection Exercise 10 min
For the reflection exercise, students will get the chance to think about food miles and urban
agriculture and apply it to the real world. Have students refer to the Reflection Exercise
Worksheet. Tell students that they get the next ten minutes to design their own restaurant in
small groups that will be opening in New York City. The catch is that restaurant only offers one
meal each week and the great thing about the restaurant is that it also produces all the food on
site or within a 5-mile radius! Students must figure out what meal they want to cook and sell,
what the major ingredients they will use are, where the ingredients will come from and how they
will be grown or raised. They should aim to source all the food from the city so that they have
the lowest mileage, but they may realize they need to look outside of the city (encourage the
students to think of creative ways to grow certain foods in the city, especially meat). The meal
should cover the following food groups: one vegetable, one fruit, one meat, and one side dish of
their choosing. Have the students present and hand in their worksheet at the end of class.
Reflection Exercise
Directions: Congratulations! You are starting a new restaurant in New York City and as part of
your goal to be environmentally conscious, you have decided that each week you will feature a
meal where all the ingredients were sourced within a 5-mile radius of the restaurant! Your job is
to figure out what meal you will create and serve, what the major ingredients are, where the
ingredients will come from, and how they will be grown and raised. You should aim to source all
the food from within the city so that you have the lowest mileage, but you may realize they need
to look outside of the city (try to think of creative ways to grow certain foods in the city,
especially meat). The meal should cover the following food groups: one vegetable, one fruit, one
meat, and one side dish of your choosing.
Meal name: __________________
Vegetable: ________________ Source:
_________________________________________________
Fruit: ____________________ Source:
____________________________________________________
Meat: __________________ Source:
______________________________________________________
Side dish: ________________ Source:
_____________________________________________________
Food Mile Skit Map
http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/contemporarymaps/usa/basemaps/usstates1.jpg
Food Mile Skit Map
https://s-m edia-cache-
ak0.pinimg.com/originals/6e/7b/86/6e7b86c29ca4818eaca4a57a7474751a.jpg
http://geology.com/world/map/map-of-poland.gif
Name Tags for Food Miles Activity – cut out and hand to students
Chicken
Raised in: Atlanta, Georgia
822 miles from Union City
High School
Potatoes
Grown in: Boise, Idaho
2,137 miles from Union City
High School
Green Beans
Grown in: Madison,
Wisconsin
609 miles from Union City
High School
Burger Meat
Raised in: Austin, Texas
1,491 miles from Union City
High School
Bun - Yeast
Grown in: Hattiesburg,
Mississippi
1,050 miles from Union City
High School
Cheese
Produced in: Madison,
Wisconsin
609 miles from Union City
High School
Onions
Grown in: Salem, Oregon
2,609 miles from Union City
High School
Tomato
Grown in: Tallahassee, Florida
1,005 miles from Union City
High School
Grapes
Grown in: Sacramento,
California
2,488 miles from Union City
High School
Bananas
Grown in: India
7,906 miles from Union City
High School
Blueberries
Grown in: Poland
4,374 miles from Union City
High School
Kiwi
Grown in: Italy
4,489 miles from Union City
High School
https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5499/9486924617_8852083354_b.jpg
http://www.johnshelleysjournal.com/burger-onionrings.jpg
http://www.tasteforlife.com/sites/default/files/styles/desktop/public/Fruit%20Salad.jpg?itok=Suzknd95
Community Gardens
https://communitygarden.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Jon-Petersons-peterson-garden-project.jpg
https://containergardening.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/cadillac-urban-gardens-3-512x320.png?w=825&h=510&crop=1
Roof Top Gardens
http://www.bevbeverly.com/images/www.caststone.com.au/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/rooftop-garden-2.jpg
http://popupcity.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Bus-rooftop-garden-1-1200x799.jpg
Urban Hydroponics
http://www.correntewire.com/files/1_hydroponics.jpg
http://www.hydromasta.com.au/images/balconey.jpg
Aquaponics
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/7a/07/2a/7a072a290fc83a0fb3db1c45ca2a1666.jpg
http://fpstapleton-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Aqua-473B7605.jpg
Vertical Farming
http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/full/public/2015/10/21/1020verticalfarms01.jpg
https://garisonbenjaminsustains.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/farmedhere.jpeg
Lesson 3 Title: Food Procurement Project – Addressing Food Safety and School Policy
Objective: Students will learn about what policies may be a barrier to having their food procured
into the school cafeteria. They will start to understand how tricky and complicated it can be to
implement food related initiatives, even when they appear to be easy endeavors. They will be
able to identify six different types of food borne illness and propose food safety measures for
growing, handling, and preparing their foods. They will also learn the foundations of creating a
student opinion survey.
Topics: Political Science, Biology
Grade Level: 9th-12th Grade
Time: 84 minutes
External Materials Needed: chalkboard/wipe board, projector, computer (plus computers for
students), writing utensils
Teaching Tips:
The priority of this lesson is for students to understand why we need food safety policy, and then
be given the chance to write their own policy related to this project. Students need to understand
the importance of having a policy in place that ensures the production, serving, and consumption
of their foods to the student body.
This lesson is filled with very important information and is difficult to shorten, but the goal is to
ensure enough time for students to work on their food safety policy. For the foodborne illness
activity, a time saver would be to simply lecture the students using the teacher’s answer key
instead of dividing the students into groups. By doing this, you add more teacher-centered
methods to learning, but it would decrease the amount of time needed to be spent on the topic. If
there is not time for the activity, the teacher should at least plan to discuss the following section,
“Connecting foodborne illnesses to food safety lecture/discussion,” as it is very relevant to the
policy development portion. This portion is designed to be more of a lecture, but could easily be
adapted to a more discussion/Q&A style. To cut down time during the policy introduction and
policy design section, you can incorporate going over your school’s policy while students design
their own – provide students with copies of both your school’s specific guidelines they follow
along with the pages out of the Farm to School Food Safety Guidelines document. If you can
have your school’s food service manager present, it would greatly benefit the students as they
work through the activity. Much like the other lessons, if there is no time for the review exercise
it may be assigned as homework.
Lesson Plan and Activities:
Introduction 4 min
Ask the students why we have rules and laws in our society? What roles do they play in our
everyday life and why do we need them? (Answer: rules and laws are in place to protect us and
ensure that all our needs are met – they are in our best interest) Inform the students that we are
going to begin working on the proposal for getting food grown on the hydroponics system into
the cafeteria, but before we get into the nitty-gritty of how we will do this, we need to look at
how rules and laws related to food safety play a big part in our project. Understanding this will
prepare us for potential barriers we may face and help us come up with measures around food
safety and school policy on eating more fruits and vegetables.
Background on school procurement and local food movement (talked a little about this
last lesson) 5 min
Remind the students that in the last lesson we talked about the environmental benefits of
sourcing food locally. Ask the students if anyone can remind us how local food benefits our
environment and human health. Sourcing local food not only cuts down on greenhouse gas
emissions, but also allows for more fresh foods, like freshly grown fruits and vegetables, to enter
a community’s food system – benefiting the diets of community members. There is a national
movement called the Farm to School Movement that encourages schools to build school gardens,
educate students about nutrition, agriculture, and other garden related lessons, and promotes
procuring foods from local farmers and using them in the cafeteria29. Research has shown that
school gardens are increasing fruit and vegetable intake of students, which can have very
positive health effects on students30,31. Though this movement is gaining momentum, we need to
think about some of the reasons why momentum is still kind of slow.
Potential barriers to procurement 5 min
Food & Safety
Begin by asking the students why we need to think about food safety? Why types of policy have
been developed around this topic? From their answers, you should gain an idea of whether
students are familiar with foodborne illness. Ask someone to define what a foodborne illness is
(Answer: disease that is transmitted to humans by food32). More specifically, foodborne
illnesses are caused by microorganisms which are tiny single-celled organisms that we can only
see through a microscope. Ask the students if they can name any microorganisms (Answers:
bacteria, viruses, yeasts and molds, parasites).
Foodborne Illness Activity (adopted from Penn State Extension Food Safety
Lessons for Middle School Students33) 20 min
29 http://www.farmtoschool.org/learn 30 Parmer, S. M., Salisbury-Glennon, J., Shannon, D., & Struempler, B. (2009). School gardens: an experiential
learning approach for a nutrition education program to increase fruit and vegetable knowledge, preference, and
consumption among second-grade students. Journal of nutrition education and behavior, 41(3), 212-217. 31 Heim, S., Stang, J., & Ireland, M. (2009). A garden pilot project enhances fruit and vegetable consumption among
children. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 109(7), 1220-1226. 32 Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. (2016). Lesson 1 – What’s bugging you? Retrieved from
http://www.extension.iastate.edu/foodsafety/L1.1 33 Penn State Extension. (2016). Food safety lessons for middle school students: Microbes and our food – Lesson 1.
Retrieved from http://extension.psu.edu/food/safety/educators/food-safety-lessons-for-middle-school-students
Divide students into small groups and have them use a computer to research different foodborne
illnesses. Each group will have at least one foodborne illness to lookup, but depending on the
class size a group may have more than one (students are to be given the disease name to look up,
however, for viral food poisoning students are given the scientific name to research instead).
Using the Foodborne Illness Activity Worksheet, students should gather information pertaining
to their illness and be prepared to present their findings back to the class. An answer worksheet is
provided for the teacher, as well as pictures of each disease to be pulled up when students
present. When students present their information, they may write their answers on the board so
other students can copy down the facts in their notebooks. Give students roughly 10-15 minutes
for the research portion and leave 10 for the presentation.
Connecting foodborne illnesses to food safety lecture/discussion 10 min
Ask the students to think about and name some conditions or environments that enable
foodborne illnesses to grow and thrive? (Throughout the lecture/discussion, write answers/ideas
on the board and have students record any notes) After students have developed some ideas, go
over the following practices that promote foodborne illnesses34.
1. Food acidity, temperature, and time
- Bacteria need nutrients to survive and get those nutrients from foods – they grow best
on food that is neutral to slightly acidic and grow best in temperatures between 41 ֯ F -
140 ֯ F (their growth is slowed before 41 ֯ F, so keeping foods refrigerated is important
as well as cooking at high temperatures).
2. Oxygen
- Some bacteria need oxygen, some do not.
3. Moisture
- When both food and water/moisture are present, bacteria will thrive. Salts and sugar
hold water and make it unavailable to bacteria. Molds like damp, dark environments
for optimal growth
4. Human to food contact/contact with unclean surfaces aka Cross contamination
- Individuals who are sick, or carry germs on their hands (everyone), can transmit
viruses or bacteria directly to food or threw use of contaminated kitchen utensils.
- If food touches a surface, like a cutting board, that is unclean or was previously used
to cut meat and not washed, it can house viruses and bacteria that will transfer on to
the food. Preparing vegetables on a surface that was just used to prepare meats is a
common way to promote bacteria/virus growth. Preventing cross contamination is
crucial, even inside a refrigerator and when you are thawing foods.
The students should come to the realization that we are concerned with food safety policy
because we do not want students to get sick from eating the food grown on the hydroponics
34 The University of Rhode Island. (2017). Causes and prevention of foodborne illness. Retrieved from
http://web.uri.edu/foodsafety/cause-and-prevention-of-foodborne-illness/
system. We want to minimize the chance of creating environments where bacteria, mold, and
viruses can grow. After this discussion, tell the students that we are going to shift gears and
take everything we have learned about food safety and translate it into policy. We will be
looking at food safety policy as well as school policy to inform our proposal.
Policy 10 min
Ask the students if they can give you a definition of what a policy is and how policies are used.
Ask them to name any examples they can think of. You may choose to write the examples on
the board. Use the definition and examples below after students have finished brainstorming or if
they get stuck.
Policy35: management or procedure based primarily on material interest; a high-level overall plan
embracing the general goals and acceptable procedures especially of a governing body.
Policies are rules, regulations, guidelines, and procedures that we use in all different aspect of
life that tell us what can and cannot be done in different situations. For example, your school has
a dress code policy that outlines what students may or may not wear. Another example would be
policies that do not allow people to smoke inside of restaurants or in the work place, but allow
you to smoke outside of the establishment in designated areas.
Present the students with the school’s policies on food safety and food procurement. (If the
school does not have these policies, draw from the included document titled Food Safety
Policies). Ask the students to pull out key pieces they think are most important to them and
the project. Why are these important? Ask the students if they see any potential policy
barriers or things they need to keep in mind? Do they see anything missing from the
policy?
Designing Food Safety Policy 25 min
After reading through the policies, direct the students to the Measures for Safely Handling Fresh
Produce – Our Food Safety Policy worksheet. The students will be working together to outline
their own food policy guidelines specific to their proposal and the hydroponics system. Students
can be divided into small groups and then collaborate at the end if the class is large, but small-
sized classes should work together to design the policy. This activity was informed by
information outlined in California’s Farm to Fork publication titled: Farm to School Food Safety
Guidelines36. It will be very helpful to utilize pages 10-18 as students brainstorm their policy
ideas (copies of these pages should be distributed to students, but they should not copy it
directly). Before starting, it may be useful to talk with the students about what the overall goal of
the policy is (Answer: making sure they are safely feeding their fellow students).
35 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/policy 36 http://cafarmtofork.com/files/FarmToSchoolFoodSafetyToolkit.pdf
After going through the activity, ask the students if they think their policy outline aligns with
what the school has set up. Did they reference the current policy at all during their outline
process? Why or why not?
Remind the students that it will be important to mention and discuss their food safety proposal
during their final presentation.
Reflection exercise 5 min
For the last five minutes of class, have the students take out a piece of paper and write a brief
answer to the following prompt. Collect the prompts on their way out.
Thinking back to last week’s lesson, how could we design policy to encourage urban
agriculture methods and school gardens in our town?
Foodborne Illness Activity Worksheet
Disease name: _________________________
Scientific name: __________________________
Circle one: Bacteria Parasite Virus Mold
Source(s): _____________________________________________
Symptoms: _________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Disease name: _________________________
Scientific name: __________________________
Circle one: Bacteria Parasite Virus Mold
Source(s): _____________________________________________
Symptoms: _________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Disease name: _________________________
Scientific name: __________________________
Circle one: Bacteria Parasite Virus Mold
Source(s): _____________________________________________
Symptoms: _________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Disease name: _________________________
Scientific name: __________________________
Circle one: Bacteria Parasite Virus Mold
Source(s): _____________________________________________
Symptoms: _________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Disease name: _________________________
Scientific name: __________________________
Circle one: Bacteria Parasite Virus Mold
Source(s): _____________________________________________
Symptoms: _________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Disease name: _________________________
Scientific name: __________________________
Circle one: Bacteria Parasite Virus Mold
Source(s): _____________________________________________
Symptoms: _________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Foodborne Illness Activity Answers:
E. coli37 Hepatitis A38
Salmonella39 Mold 40
Botulism41
Cyrpto42
37 https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/images/ecoli-1184px.jpg 38 http://themedcentrepharmacy.com/hepatitis-a/ 39http://img.webmd.com/dtmcms/live/webmd/consumer_assets/site_images/articles/health_tools/salmonella_outbrea
k_tomatoes_slideshow/PRinc_rm_photo_of_salmonella1.jpg 40 https://s3.amazonaws.com/engrade-myfiles/4037028012018444/microscopic_bread_mold.jpg 41 http://pediatricinfectiousdisease.blogspot.com/2016/01/clostridium-botulinum-honey-and-home.html 42 http://media1.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2016_33/1677576/160820-cryptosporidium-mn-
1030_e09926c78ed1a15cefe22beb1c2cae3f.nbcnews-ux-2880-1000.jpg
Foodborne Illness Fact Sheet43
Disease name: Botulism
Scientific name: Clostridium botulinum, C. Botulinum
Circle one: Bacteria
Source(s): Can be found in improperly canned vegetables, meats, and seafood. Grows well in
environments that have low oxygen levels and low acidity and is very heat resistant.
Symptoms: nausea, vomiting, fatigue, dizziness, and eventually paralysis and death. Those
infected do not typically have a fever.
Disease name: Toxicosis or Mycotoxins
Scientific name: Aspergillus falvus and aspergillus parasiticus
Circle one: Mold
Source(s): Comes from food that is moldy like peanuts, corn, wheat, bread, and cheese. Can be
spread by exposure to dust and damp conditions
Symptoms44: Typically causes nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Can be carcinogenic
(cause cancer) or cause liver disease
Disease name: E.coli gastroenteritis hemorrhagic colitis
Scientific name: Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli
Circle one: Bacteria
Source(s)45: Mainly in undercooked meats like ground beef, but can be found in unpasteurized
soft cheeses, raw milk, and raw fruits and vegetables like sprouts. Can also be found in
contaminated water.
Symptoms: Diarrhea (sometimes bloody), fever, nausea, kidney failure
43 http://extension.psu.edu/food/safety/educators/food-safety-lessons-for-middle-school-students/introduction-
background-in-microbiology/FSLssn1-2-10-05.pdf 44 http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/14/mold-food-health-risk/2788405/ 45 https://www.foodsafety.gov/poisoning/causes/bacteriaviruses/ecoli/
Disease name: Cryptosporidiosis or “Crypto”
Scientific name: Cryptosporidium parvum
Circle one: Parasite
Source(s)46: Lives in people’s intestines. Transmitted mainly by water and undercooked meats.
The parasite lives in a shell which makes it very resistant to disinfection methods like chlorine.
Crypto is the leading cause of waterborne disease in US
Symptoms: diarrhea, gastrointestinal discomfort
Disease name: Viral food poisoning
Scientific name: Hepatitis A Virus
Circle one: Virus
Source(s): Can be present in shellfish when they are exposed to raw sewage. Can be spread to
vegetables if contaminated fertilizers are used when growing and the virus is not always killed
when cooked.
Symptoms: General feelings of sickness, appetite loss, nausea, vomiting, fever. Can cause liver
damage and death if left untreated.
Disease name: Salmonella
Scientific name: Salmonella species S. typhimurium,
S. enteriditisdis, S. anatum
Circle one: Bacteria
Source(s)47: Mostly associated with food that was contaminated by animal feces. Foods like
eggs, meat, poultry, turkey, unpasteurized orange juice, vegetables, and beef or pork may
become contaminated. Using the same cutting board to prepare raw meats and then raw
vegetables is one way to promote cross contamination of salmonella. Salmonella can grow
outside and inside eggs that are unrefrigerated and can be found in potato and egg salads.
Salmonella is why people warn of eating rough cookie dough that contains eggs.
Symptoms: Flu-like symptoms accompanied by muscular weakness, moderate fever, and
diarrhea.
46 https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/crypto/ 47 http://www.foodborneillness.com/salmonella_food_poisoning/
Measures for Safely Handling Fresh Produce – Our Food Safety Policy
Growing and Harvesting Produce
Using Produce in Taste-Tests
Personal Hygiene Measures
Washing and Preparing Produce
Serving Produce
Storing and Handling Produce
Review Exercise
Directions: Answer the prompt and turn in on your way out of class.
Thinking back to last week’s lesson, how could we design policy to encourage urban
agriculture methods and school gardens in our town and the surrounding school districts?
Food Safety and Procurement Policies
If your school does not have specific policy on procuring garden food into the cafeteria, the
following sites are great resources for learning more about the farm to school movement and the
policies that support it and safe practices for handling produce in schools.
1. National Farm to School Network – Farm to School Act 2015
a. http://www.farmtoschool.org/cnr2015
2. Life Lab – Policy and Protocols for School Gardens and Garden to Cafeteria
a. http://www.lifelab.org/for-educators/schoolgardens/garden-to-cafeteria/#Policy
3. Change Lab Solutions – Serving School Garden Produce in the Cafeteria
a. http://www.changelabsolutions.org/publications/school-garden-produce
4. USDA – Memo: Farm to School and School Garden Expenses
a. http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/SP06-2015os.pdf
5. USDA – Memo: School Garden Q&As
a. http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/SP_32-2009_os.pdf
6. USDA – School Gardens: Using Gardens to Grow Healthy Habits in Cafeterias,
Classrooms, and Communities
a. http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/f2s/FactSheet_School_Gardens.pdf
If your school is interested in procuring foods from local farmers these resources will also be
beneficial:
1. Developing a wellness policy at your school
a. http://www.cias.wisc.edu/foodservtools/8-Build-sustainability/model-wellness-
policy-language.pdf
2. Policy Link – Equitable Development Toolkit: Local Food Procurement
a. https://www.policylink.org/sites/default/files/edtk_local-food-procurement.pdf
Information on Microorganisms
Bacteria are found everywhere and they can be good or bad for us. You can treat a bacterial
infection with antibiotics, but overtime certain bacteria can form a
resistance to these medicines. The shape of bacteria can vary, with
the three common shapes being spherical, rod-shaped, or
spiral48,49,50.
Yeasts and molds typically make us think of
breads as yeasts help breads to rise and molds are fuzzy growths on breads
and cheese. Yeast grows as a single cell, typically spherical in shape, but mold
is formed by branches of cells that are tubular in shape51,52, 53.
Viruses are almost always harmful to humans. They have genes and
can evolve and reproduce; however, since they do not have a cell
structure they need a host in order to thrive. There are four main
shapes of viruses, polyhedral, spherical, helical, and complex54,55.
Viruses attack all different body systems including blood, the
respiratory system, or our liver. It is really challenging to treat
viruses and vaccines are really the only main prevention methods.
Lastly are parasites, which are microorganisms that need a host to
survive and use the host for food and shelter. Not all parasites are
there to harm a host, but they can produce toxins that make the host
sick. Parasites come in all sorts of forms as they are truly classified
as any organisms feeding off another organism, but for foodborne
illnesses, our parasites are going to have a shape like that of a worm56,57. You can treat parasites
with antibiotics, but some parasites have no treatment methods58,59.
48 http://swh.schoolworkhelper.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/bacteria-bacilli-spirilla-
cocci.jpg?x37075 49 http://classes.midlandstech.edu/carterp/courses/bio225/chap04/lecture2.htm 50 https://dr282zn36sxxg.cloudfront.net/datastreams/f-
d%3Ac3342fc75dcd790bc023416e0d99fbc3e65d1769211a42be86c6bc03%2BIMAGE_THUMB_POSTCARD_TI
NY%2BIMAGE_THUMB_POSTCARD_TINY.1 51 http://www.diffen.com/difference/Mold_vs_Yeast 52 http://microbialfoods.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Mold-yeast-bacteria-01.jpg 53 http://microbialfoods.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Mold-yeast-bacteria-01.jpg 54 https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/shapes-viruses-viral-vector-illustration-showing-there-many-different-sizes-
43457161.jpg 55 https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/shapes-viruses-viral-vector-illustration-showing-there-many-different-sizes-
43457161.jpg 56 http://www.carolguze.com/text/102-18-diversityoflife2.shtml 57 http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150925190314-toxocara-larva-exlarge-169.jpg 58 http://extension.psu.edu/food/safety/educators/food-safety-lessons-for-middle-school-students/introduction-
background-in-microbiology/FSLssn1-2-10-05.pdf 59 http://www.medicaldaily.com/viral-infection-im-sick-pathogens-384531
Lesson 4 Title: Food Procurement Project – Addressing Yields, Seasonality, and Budgeting
Objective: Students will investigate what it will take to get the food into their cafeteria via taste-
tests events. They will look at seasonality and harvest times to develop a rough calendar for their
taste-tests. Students will determine what other classes and students they will need to work with to
accomplish the taste-tests as well as what it will take to grow, prepare, and introduce the foods. If
students choose to add new foods that they are not currently growing, they will need to include
an analysis of what it will take to grow these foods in the form of a budget.
Topics: Math
Grade Level: 9th-12th Grade
Time: 84 minutes
External Materials Needed: chalkboard/wipe board, projector, computer, writing utensils
Teaching tips:
This lesson is meant to help students get at all the nitty-gritty details of starting their taste-tests.
The various operational and logistical questions are to be used to make students aware of all the
different components that need to be considered to run a successful taste-test program. For
answering these questions, small groups can be utilized if there is some class-wide discussion so
that everyone is on the same page – remember, the proposal is coming from the whole class so
everyone should be on board. To shorten this section, you may take out various questions if they
have already been previously answered or are not relevant in your situation. The portion of
calculating yields can also be taken out, if there is some discussion on why we would need to
calculate yields once the project is approved by the school’s administration. Additionally, other
sections that can be altered are the seasonality activity and the budget creation. If you prefer not
to cover seasonality if you are growing indoors, you may choose to skip over the seasonality
discussion and go straight into creating the rough calendar. The calendar creation is a great
activity (even better with seasonality discussion), but can be modified if needed or combined
with the budget creation activity. If there is no time to fill out the budget worksheet and use the
online sources to gain seed price information, have a short discussion on why it is important to
create a budget and in the final presentation recommend a budget amount or that a budget
amount be determined by the school’s administration. There are two options for the reflection
exercise. The first options cover mathematical topics and the second is more geared toward
Family Consumer Science as it is recipe creation. It is up to the teacher’s discretion on which
exercise should be completed in class or as homework. One suggestion is that if you remove the
budget creation activity from the lesson, use the math problem option as your exercise. The
lesson can also be covered over more than one day if needed.
Lesson Plan and Activities:
Introduction 3 min
For this lesson, students are going to start to make a business plan for their project. Tell them that
we are going to look at starting taste-tests in their cafeteria and want to write up a proposal to
share with the principal (and whoever else would be involved). To create a thorough plan, we
need to determine who are the key players in making this happen, how much food and what
foods can we produce, what foods are introduced at what time of the year, and how will they be
prepared. Remind them that it is just a proposal that it would need to be approved by the school,
but we want to make sure it is as sound as possible.
Procurement Method 7 min
Start by asking the students what could be the value of offering taste-tests in the cafeteria as a
strategy for getting students to eat more vegetables? You can include the following questions in
the conversation:
Why is it important to increase our fruit/vegetable intake?
How likely do you think students would be to try new foods?
Do you think that having students/fellow peers preparing the food would increase
students’ interest in trying new foods as a taste-test?
Taste-tests are a great way to introduce new foods and get people excited about trying healthy
food options that still taste good. After learning about the various policy barriers and challenges
of sourcing food directly into the cafeteria, this method could be an easy way to abide by all the
rules and still get students eating veggies. Increasing fruit/vegetable intake is great for our health
because it decreases the amount of processed foods we are putting into our bodies. If students are
growing, cooking, and serving the foods, peers may be more likely to try something new
compared to if they just saw it as an option in the lunch line. To pursue this method and propose
it to the principal, we need to work out some of the details and include them in our presentation.
Major Operational Questions 15 min
Arrange the desk so that everyone is sitting in a circle. As a group, fill out the Taste-Test Major
Questions Worksheet. They should use these questions/answers in their final proposal
presentation. If the class is very large, have the students break into small groups and then share
their answers with the class and look for converging ideas.
Where will the taste-tests be set up? Inside the cafeteria? Outside? Other? Why?
Who will run the taste-tests? Who will serve the food? Will there be shifts? Do we need
people for different lunch periods?
What will the set-up look like? What equipment will be needed? How will we attract
students over?
Who do we need to work with? Cooking class? Cafeteria staff? Principal? Other? Why?
Who will prepare the food? Who will clean up at the end? Where will the extra food go?
Major Logistical Questions 15 min
As a group, go through the logistical questions found in their Taste-Test Major Questions
Worksheet. They should use these questions in their final proposal presentation.
What foods are they currently capable of growing? How much can currently be grown?
Calculate yields and make time lines of how long it takes to grow
o With students, determine/calculate how many pounds of certain food they
produce in a week/month – these values will then be compared later to how much
is needed per serving of taste-test.
How many students do we need to feed per lunch period? Do we need to limit the amount
of people that can participate in each taste test because of supply?
What supplies will we need to make this happen? Will it vary depending on what is
served? In general, what are the common supplies? Where could we get them/who do we
ask for them?
o Cups, bowls, etc.
How do we determine what foods we will use in each taste-test? What kind of dishes will
be prepared? Should we make the foods seasonally appropriate? What foods should we
introduce to the system?
Seasonality Activity – Calendar Creation 20 min
For this activity, students need to think about what foods should be grown and when. They also
need to think about how long it takes to grow the amount that is needed. Whether you are using a
hydroponic system or a typical garden, thinking about when certain foods are grown can be
correlated with when certain foods should be showcased in the taste-tests. This activity can be
conducted in a large circle or in small groups depending on class size.
Go over the importance of seasonality with the students. “Seasonality of food refers to the
times of year when the harvest or the flavor of a given type food is at its peak. This is usually the
time when the item is the cheapest and the freshest on the market. The food's peak harvest time
usually coincides with when its flavor is at its best”60. Students want to think about seasonality
because it can relate back to the food miles activity. If you know what season certain foods grow
in, you will be more informed when buying foods at the grocery store, and may even be more
inclined to search for locally grown food because you know it will be at its freshest. When you
live in Pennsylvania and buy strawberries in the middle of winter, you know that they are not
being grown locally and are being imported. Knowing this can sometimes change how people
buy and consume foods.
Tell the students that we are going to look at a chart of foods that can be grown through
hydroponics and then try and determine what season they are commonly grown in. Students
will use the information on what can be grown hydroponically added at the end of this lesson to
make their decisions (the pages should be printed and distributed to groups). After students have
thought about what foods they would like to try out, move on to the seasonality guide for PA to
60 Wikipedia. (2016). Seasonal food. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_food
figure out when those foods are typically grown. Using the Seasonal Food Guide61 is a great
online tool that you can bring up with your students to figure out what foods you want to grow
and serve in which months to correspond with appropriate seasonality. Using hydroponics
indoors makes seasonality seem less important because weather is not a factor; however, having
students explore seasonality is meant to make them smarter consumers and expose them to foods
grown in different seasons that they may have not been previously aware of.
Using the calendar worksheet, in this lesson, as a class, have students start filling in where they
think certain taste-tests should fall. When they choose a certain food, they can also write down
suggestions of how the food should be prepared and served (Ex. if you wanted to use lettuce, one
idea would be to do salads). One of the review exercises for this lesson involves recipe creation
so if you do not stress it here students will be able to think about it at the end of the lesson.
Students should be using this calendar to also map out when they plan to start planting a certain
crop, factoring in how long it will take to grow. The worksheet allows students to write the taste-
test for that month as well as what foods they should begin growing. During the budget creation
exercise, students will gather information on each plants’ days to maturity so that they can figure
out how many months they need to plant in advance. They do not necessarily need to pick
specific dates; weeks may work as well until specific dates can be approved.
Some questions they may need to consider are:
How many test-tastes will they have in a week/month/year?
How long does it take to grow each type of food to meet the taste-test deadline?
Next, tell the students we are moving on to another round of logistical questions. These questions
will allow the students to form a budget around what they need to spend to make the taste-tests
possible.
Budget Creation 20 min
Using the following questions, have the students work in groups to complete a budget form so
they know how much everything will cost (they will need access to a computer). Ask the
students why they think it is necessary to be creating a budget? Why can’t we just propose the
taste-tests and ignore the budget component? The answer should revolve around ensuring that
there are enough funds to make this possible and to show their teacher and administration that
they have taken a thoughtful approach to this proposal. The goal is for the students to understand
the struggle of budgeting and perhaps not having enough money to make something happen, but
to also be creative and figure out ways to get the most out of the money they have.
If you already know what the set budget is for your garden, include that number so they know
what they must work with. If you do not have a budget, have the students simply figure out how
much everything will cost. Be sure to include miscellaneous costs like any fertilizers, utilities,
61 http://www.sustainabletable.org/seasonalfoodguide/
etc. Use the Taste-Test Budget Worksheet to work through this activity. (You may also choose to
work as a group in an Excel Document).
- What seeds will need to be purchased to accommodate the foods they want to grow?
- Is there a budget for current foods? If so, what is it?
- How much will it cost to introduce new foods?
- How much does it cost to produce a certain yield of each food? (figuring out how
many seed packs to purchase)
- Can any seeds be saved and used again?
To figure out prices of the seeds and days to maturity, use the following websites to get a generic
information for different fruits and vegetables. These websites will also be valuable in figuring
out the quantity you need to purchase to feed the number of students at the school. If your school
uses a certain provider or seeds, it would be best to gather information from them to use in your
budget.
Burpee Seeds: http://www.burpee.com/
Johnny’s Seeds: http://www.johnnyseeds.com/
During the process, and after the budget is completed, have the students take note of any foods
they needed to remove because it did not fit into their budget. How does this affect their taste-test
calendar? If there is time, have them brainstorm ways to generate revenue to increase their
budget. Remind the students that this budget should be incorporated into their final presentation
to show that they have thought about these details.
Reflection exercise 4 min
To end the lesson, have the students work out the following reflection exercise. Two different
options for exercises are provided. The first exercise is a word problem (the worksheet,
Sunflower Word Problem, will be distributed at the end of class) while the second option is a
recipe creation exercise to have students think through the steps to developing taste-test recipes
(again, worksheet to be distributed at the end of class):
Option 1: Word Problem
To celebrate graduation, a high school in Oklahoma, a world leader in growing sunflowers,
wants to distribute one sunflower to each graduating senior. The senior class consists of 265
students. Using the information below, determine how much it will cost the school to grow
enough sunflowers for each senior, considering that not all the seeds may produce the perfect
flower.
- 1 pack of 20 seeds costs $6.95
- Each seed is to produce one flower
Additionally, using the following information, when should the school plan to start growing the
sunflowers if graduation is June 14th? When should they harvest them?
- They need full sun
- Bloom duration is 6 weeks
- Seedlings emerge in 7-10 days
- Sunflowers usually take 80-120 days to mature
Answer:
265 students / 20 seeds per pack = 13.25 packs needed (round up to 14 packs)
14 packs * $6.95 per pack = $97.3
They should start planting in the beginning of April to allow roughly 3 months for the sunflowers
to grow. They can be harvested the day before graduation, which would have been roughly 1.5
weeks into their bloom.
Option 2: Recipe creation
One important part of our taste-tests is deciding what foods we should offer up at each event.
Answer the following questions that will help us determine what recipes we should use for our
tests:
Where should we look for recipes? Can you think of any sources besides the Internet?
What types of foods should we look for? Is it important to consider the number of ingredients?
Why or why not?
From the list, pick one component of the taste-tests that you think is the most important and
explain why you think that: serving nutritious foods, serving foods that taste good, serving foods
with the least number of ingredients, serving new foods people aren’t used to, other reasons.
What Can You Grow Hydroponically?62
WARM WEATHER CROPS: Start seedlings in March-April, transplant in May. Harvested
by late August:
Tomatoes
Green peppers
Eggplants
Cucumbers
Green beans
Squash (needs room)
Melons (need room)
COOL SEASON CROPS: Two growing seasons: Early spring (February 20); and early fall
(August 30):
Broccoli and cauliflower
Cabbage and bok choy
Lettuces
Spinach
Swiss chard
Peas, snow peas and sugar snaps
Green onions
Carrots (stubbies)
Other: Flowers, herbs, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, peppers, watermelon,
grapes
Note: Vegetables that grow beneath the soil, such as onions, leeks, carrots, parsnips, potatoes,
yams and radishes will also grow hydroponically, but may require extra care
Crops to avoid: corn, zucchini, summer squash, and vining plants. They can be grown in a
hydroponic garden, but they are not space efficient, and just not practical. They will dominate
your whole unit.
62 http://modularhydro.com/ArticleLibrary/WhatCanYouGrowHydroponically.html#top
10 Best (Easiest) Plants to Grow Hydroponically Indoors63
1. Spinach
2. Lettuce
3. Watercress- This semi-aquatic plant thrives best in water that is slightly alkaline and that
keeps moving.
4. Cherry Tomatoes- Keep in mind, though, that tomatoes, including cherry tomatoes, require a
lot of light to grow, so you might want to get a standalone grow light, or one of the cherry
tomato growing kits with LED grow lights.
5. Cucumbers- When planting cucumber vines, keep in mind that as the plants grow, the vines
will likely need to be supported with a large trellis or wire cage. No room for vines and a large
trellis? Popular among container gardeners, the bush types are much smaller than the more
common vine types, and you can buy bush cucumber seeds
6. Peppers (chili)
7. Kale
8. Strawberries- To get started, purchase a couple of strawberry starter runners from a garden
supply store, and place them in a refrigerator for a few of months before planting them in your
hydroponic indoor garden. Such cold stimulation helps jump-start the growing process, and your
strawberry plants should start producing flowers right after planting.
9. Mint- orange mint (also known as water mint) is a semi-aquatic plant that in nature grows best
in shallow water on the sides of ponds and streams. Also, peppermint, which is a hybrid cross
between spearmint and orange mint, loves water. AeroGarden sells hydroponic herb garden
kits that are ideal for indoor use and that are perfect for growing herbs like mint, basil, parsley
and cilantro at home.
10. Basil- The easiest way to get started with growing basil in a hydroponic system is to buy
basil seedlings at a garden center and transplant the seedlings into the hydroponic container after
carefully rinsing the soil off the roots.
63 http://www.healwithfood.org/grow-indoors/best-plants-to-grow-hydroponically-or-aquaponically.php
What to grow in stackable planters64 - Fruits and Veggies
Amaranth (vegetable type)
Arugula
Bayam
Beans: Lima, bush, pole, shell, green
Broccoli
Broccoli Raab
Brussels Sprouts
Cabbage and Chinese cabbage
Cauliflower
Chard, all types
Chicory
Collards
Cucumbers
Cress
Dandelion, Italian
Eggplant, European
Endive
Escarole
Garbanzo beans
Gourds
Kale
Kinh gioi
Kohlrabi
Komatsuna
Leeks
Lettuce, all types
Mesclun Varieties
Melons, all types
64 https://www.mrstacky.com/FAQ.html
Misome
Mizuna
Mustard Greens
Ngo Gai
Okra
Pak Choy
Peas, all types
Peppers, all types
Radicchio
Sorrel
Spinach
Squash, all types
Strawberries
Tomatoes, all types
Can grow hydroponically
PA Seasonality Chart http://www.papreferred.com/seasonal_calendar.aspx
Calendar Worksheet
Directions: For each month, determine what foods you want to showcase. Add potentials dates if
you can.
August Date: March Date:
_______________________ ____________ _______________________ ____________
_______________________ ____________ _______________________ ____________
September April
_______________________ ____________ _______________________ ____________
_______________________ ____________ _______________________ ____________
October May
_______________________ ____________ _______________________ ____________
_______________________ ____________ _______________________ ___________
November June
_______________________ ____________ _______________________ ____________
_______________________ ____________ _______________________ ____________
December
_______________________ ____________
_______________________ ____________
January
_______________________ ____________
_______________________ ____________
February
_______________________ ____________
_______________________ ____________
Test-Taste Budget Worksheet Budget: __________
Seed Type Price Per Unit Quantity Total Price
Total:
Misc. Items Price Per Unit Quantity Total Price
Total:
Sunflower Word Problem Name: ____________
To celebrate graduation, a high school in Oklahoma, a world leader in growing sunflowers,
wants to distribute one sunflower to each graduating senior. The senior class is made of 265
students. Using the information below, determine how much it will cost the school to grow
enough sunflowers for each senior, considering that not all the seeds may produce the perfect
flower.
- 1 pack of 20 seeds costs $6.95
- Each seed is to produce one flower
Calculations:
Total cost: ______________________
Additionally, using the following information, when should the school plan to start growing the
sunflowers if graduation is June 14th? When should they harvest them? Why?
- They need full sun
- Bloom duration is 6 weeks
- Seedlings emerge in 7-10 days
- Sunflowers usually take 80-120 days to mature
Answer:
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
Recipe Creation Name: ________________
One important part of our taste-tests is deciding what foods we should offer up at each event.
Answer the following questions that will help us determine what recipes we should use for our
tests:
Where should we look for recipes? Can you think of any sources besides the Internet?
What types of foods should we look for? Is it important to consider the number of ingredients?
Why or why not?
From the list, pick one component of the taste-tests that you think is the most important and
explain why you think that: serving nutritious foods, serving foods that taste good, serving foods
with the least number of ingredients, serving new foods people aren’t used to, other reasons.
Taste-Test Major Questions Worksheet
Directions: Use this worksheet to keep track of major operational and logistical questions that
need answered to make the taste-tests possible. Keep track of these answers for your final
proposal.
Operational questions
Where will the taste-tests be set up? Inside the cafeteria? Outside? Other? Why?
Who will run the taste-tests? Who will serve the food? Will there be shifts? Do we need people
for different lunch periods?
What will the set-up look like? What equipment will be needed? How will we attract students
over?
Who do we need to work with? Cooking class? Cafeteria staff? Principal? Other? Why?
Who will prepare the food? Who will clean up at the end? Where will the extra food go?
Logistical Questions
What foods are we currently capable of growing? How much is grown?
How many students do we need to feed? Do we need to limit the amount of people that can
participate in each taste test because of supply? Are there multiple lunch periods? How many in
each? Where do we find this information?
What supplies will we need to make this happen? Will it vary depending on what is served? In
general, what are the common supplies? Where could we get them/who do we ask for them?
Seasonality Questions
How do we determine what foods we will use in each taste-test? What kind of dishes will be
prepared? Should we make the foods seasonally appropriate? What foods should we introduce to
the system?
How many test-tastes will they have in a week/month/year?
How long does it take to grow each type of food to meet the taste-test deadline?
Budget questions
What seeds will need to be purchased to accommodate the foods they want to grow?
What is the budget for current foods?
How much will it cost to introduce new foods?
How much does it cost to produce a certain yield of each food? (This will help us figure out how
many seed packs to purchase.
Can any seeds be saved and used again?
Lesson 5 Title: Food Procurement Project – Marketing Plan Development
Objective: Students are introduced to marketing strategies that will help them spread awareness
about their food being introduced through taste-tests. They will think about methods of
advertisement and how to get students excited about locally grown produce. Students will also
think about the emotional connections in advertising and how they can use that to grasp peoples’
interests and get them involved. Students will learn about how the media affects the choices we
make when it comes to eating and purchasing foods. They will analyze commercials to
determine what strategies are being used by fast-food restaurants and other food products to
target children and encourage them to buy their foods. The students will then learn other broad
strategies for creating advertisements and will have to work in groups to develop their own
campaign for a healthy food using these strategies.
Topics: Marketing, Psychology
Grade Level: 9th-12th Grade
Time: 84 minutes
External Materials Needed: chalkboard/wipe board, projector, computer, writing utensils
Teaching Tips:
The purpose of this lesson is to get students thinking about what makes today’s advertisements
so successful at getting people to buy certain products and how we can harness those same
strategies to persuade students to take part in the taste-tests. There are underlying psychological
principles within this lesson as students start to consider what the human brain finds attractive
and unattractive in marketing campaigns.
Though this lesson has various video clips to watch, it should be able to fit nicely within the
class period. The day-before-reading is an optional piece, but is particularly beneficial if you are
seeing the students every day because it allows you to easily assign the reading for homework. If
you are unable to have students read beforehand, use the premise of those readings to conduct a
quick discussion before getting deep into the lesson about how the think advertising targets
children. To shorten the lesson, you can omit the Think, Pair, Share activity and decrease the
time spent on the designing a marketing plan activity. To take this lesson to the next level, you
may choose to take the last activity and turn it into a long-term project where students are to
make their plan come to life by creating a commercial, poster, or other form of advertisement to
be used in the school.
Lesson Plan and Activities:
Optional day before reading: Students can read the following articles (pick two, one from each
bullet point). The first discusses how fast food restaurants target children through their
commercials and other strategies, while the second discusses effective advertising and marketing
techniques.
A. http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2013/11/12/fast-food-ads-continue-to-target-children/
B. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=4508191&page=1
C. http://forty.co/effective-advertising-techniques-we-can-learn-from-infomercials
D. http://www.forbes.com/sites/michellegreenwald/2014/07/10/secrets-of-7-of-the-most-
effective-ad-campaigns/#c136ece12201
Introduction 4 min
Introduce to the students that we will be talking about how the media affects our eating habitats
and food choices. Briefly discuss the readings from last night and with the students start
generating a list of the ways fast food restaurants or other food brands can directly target
children. Through what lenses do they target kids? (TV, internet, social media, catchy songs or
jingles on radio). After you have a list started on the board, show students the following
commercials, stopping after each one to discuss some of the strategies companies used. Give
students the Marketing Strategies worksheet in conjunction with the next activity.
Marketing Strategies / Examples 15 min
Commercial Analysis- Major Themes in Advertising to Kids
Trix Cereal (31sec): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lhn0UUVIOA
False Advertising- make the product seem healthy
- Fruity Taste, wild berries, part of a nutritious breakfast,
delicious
Kids Only- this product is just for kids
- Tag line: Tricks are for kids
- Colorful and bright with fun music
- Young girl is directing the commercial
Pepsi (44 sec): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxcerxiSD9o
Celebrity Endorsement- famous people can persuade us to do what’s
“cool”
- One Direction and Drew Brees are promoting the product
McDonalds (31sec): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EH1IlV5q10
Cross Promotion- advertise two separate things in one commercial
- Advertise LEGO Movie and McDonalds
- Batman plug at end
- Apples and milk are thrilling to eat; enhanced by music choice
Giveaways (Contests)- Kids like toys and the chance to win
something
- Cup included in each happy meal
Discussion questions:
- Can you think of any other products that have used these strategies to target kids?
o SunnyD- only 2% juice, but made to sound as good for you as orange juice when
it is practically sugar water
o Nutella- portrayed as a nutritious option for breakfast
o Jessica Simpson and Justin Bieber- Proactive face wash
o Taylor Swift- Diet Coke
o Ashton Kutcher- Nikon cameras
- What are some of the negative impacts of these ads?
o False understanding of healthy food- Foods are promoted to be healthy and good
for you when many studies and nutrition experts have proven that the nutritional
make up of most of these foods is not healthy at all.
o Health concerns- With increased promotion of fast food, children could be
influenced to consume for of this food in unhealthy amounts leading to diet
related illness like obesity, diabetes, or heart disease
o Parents feel like they need to spend more money- parents are persuaded to
purchases these foods or regularly take their children to these restaurants could
have negative impacts on the amount of money they spend on unhealthy foods.
o Pay more for a label- Nike and Under Armour vs Champion and Mizuno-
consumers are drawn to popular labels and can base their decisions off of a label
alone (see reading B for an example of the power of the McDonalds label)
- Can you name any ads on TV that promote healthy foods?
Think, Pair, Share Activity 5 min
In groups of 2, can you think of any ways we can fight against this type of advertising? Can
you think of ways to encourage commercials related to healthy foods? What would it take to
prevent companies from targeting children in their commercials?
When time is up or the students have finished, write some of their ideas on the board. Explain
that policy is one major way we can limit the impact advertising has on children. We can develop
policy that stops the targeting of children in commercials or policy that incentivizes companies to
make commercials related to healthy eating and living habits. See if the students come up with
any other creative ideas that aren’t policy driven.
Marketing Healthy Foods 15 min
For the rest of the class period, tell the students that they are going to work on designing a
marketing plan to raise awareness about their food grown on the hydroponics system and get
students excited about trying it and eating it. Before they get started, refer to the list we made
on the board that depicts potential strategies, cross out any that you do not want students to focus
on. You can use the following strategies get them thinking more about effective techniques in
advertisement. Use this time to review what we have covered today and how it ties into this
assignment (Have students use last section on the Marketing Strategies worksheet for taking
more notes)
Your message/advertisement/marking plan should:
1. Be memorable- something that people will watch and remember
a. Create a tag-line or catch-phrase
2. Resonate with people on a personal level; give them something to relate to that is
meaningful; be inspirational; story telling is one way to do this
3. Communicate how this “product” is going to fit into their lives and be beneficial or make
them happy
a. Talk about solutions and benefits of product
4. Stand for higher values beyond the product or service- this is greater than just a
shoe/toy/snack/etc.
5. Back up claims with facts and figures
Sources (can share with students if desired):
“Secrets of 7 of the most effective ad campaigns65” By: Michelle Greenwald
“Effective advertising techniques we can learn from infomercials66” By: Shaina Rozen
You can show the following videos as examples of campaigns that follow these strategies:
1. Nike- Find Your Greatness: https://vimeo.com/90357991
a. Positive message
b. We don’t all need to be perfect, as long as we try to do our own personal best
c. Inspirational and relatable to everyone
d. Nike products “help us reach our personal goals”
2. Beats by Dr. Dre- Hear What You Want
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zr6qQB2urE
a. Message is about inner strength and conviction, believing in yourself
b. Beats keep you focus so you can ignore the background noise in life that tries to
bring you down
c. Music makes us happy and inspires us
3. Michelle Obama- Let’s Move Campaign:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lbc3cLkEY8
a. Promoting exercise in a fun and positive way
b. Shows lots of examples
c. Developed a catchy song that talks about eating right and exercising each day of
the week
65 http://www.forbes.com/sites/michellegreenwald/2014/07/10/secrets-of-7-of-the-most-effective-ad-
campaigns/#c136ece12201 66 http://forty.co/effective-advertising-techniques-we-can-learn-from-infomercials
The students’ challenge is to take all that they have learned about marketing and advertising and
use it to promote the consumption of their hydroponically-grown foods in a way that grabs
people’s attention and makes them want to choose something healthy over something less
healthy. Think about health benefits, accessibility- where foods will be made available, taste-
appeal to the senses, etc.
Students should be creative, accurate in their facts, appropriate, and use at least 3 marketing
strategies to convey their message.
Develop market plan/strategies for getting students interested 40 min
Using the Developing a Marketing Plan worksheet, have the students start organizing how they
want to advertise their taste-tests to the student body. How will they get students excited about
trying new foods? They will need to outline their goals, what 3 marketing strategies they will
employ, and what activities they will use to get people’s attention (Ex. commercials, school
newspaper article, flyers, songs, surveys, signage, designing a logo, etc.). Page 1 of the
worksheet is used to help students organize their thoughts, while page 2 is to help students
design a chart or logic model of specifically how they will put their plan in place. For each
activity that they choose to do, they need to think about who they are targeting, what is being
offered to their target audience, why people should be interested, how they will get people
interested (the section is to be very specific of the processes they will use), when the different
activities will occur/take place, and what they hope the outcome of each activity to be.
Explain how to use the worksheet with the students, and then give them time as a group or in
small groups to work out their plans. Once they are finished, use the last ten minutes of this
activity to finalize into one consolidated plan. The activities chosen in their marketing plan
should be highlighted in their final presentation.
Reflection exercise 5 min
To wrap up the lesson, read some of the following company slogans to the students and have
them try and guess what company they belong to. For each guess, ask the students what part of
the slogan made them choose that company (if you want to write all the possible answers on the
board you may, but it will be more challenging to have them try and guess out of the blue)67.
“Beauty outside. Beast inside.” – Apple Mac Pro or “Think different” – Apple
“Don’t be evil.” – Google
“I am what I am.” – Reebok
“Live in your world. Play in ours.” – Play Station 2
“Because you’re worth it.” – L’oreal
67 http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/77-catchy-and-creative-slogans/
“Think big.” - IMAX
“Imagination at work.” – General Electric
Marketing Strategies
What techniques and strategies did you notice after watching the first 3 commercials?
- Trix:
- Pepsi:
- McDonalds:
List out other techniques you hear that come up in today’s discussion:
Developing a Marketing Plan
Define up to 3 goals for your marketing plan:
1.
2.
3.
What 3 strategies will you focus on?
1.
2.
3.
What 3 activities will help you reach your goals? (3 advertising/marketing/campaign ideas)
1.
2.
3.
Will you use a tag line? If so, what will it be?
How will your campaign/marketing plan inspire students to eat this food?
What back up claims or facts will you use? What benefits of the “product” will you highlight?
What other students/teachers/classes will need to be involved to accomplish this?
Lesson 6: Project Assignment Sheet
Your task is to put together a proposal for starting taste-tests in your cafeteria. This proposal will
be in the form of a 15-20 minute Power Point presentation and should cover the topics we have
discussed over the past five classes. You want to make sure your audience understands how you
plan to make the taste-tests possible and show that you have thought through logistical details. It
is also important that you talk about your project in the context of local food and food systems so
that your audience understands why the project is important to them and your school. The project
will be scored on how well you connect our lessons into your proposal.
Using the rubric below, your job is to make sure the majority of these questions are answered in
your presentation.
Presentation components – Taste test proposal
What – What is currently being done with the food grown on the system and what do we want
do with it going forward? What is the basis of this project? What research have we done for this
project?
Why – Why is this project important? Are there environmental or health benefits for students?
Where – Where will our project be implemented?
Who – Who will be involved in making this project possible? What groups/classes/students need
to be included in this project from here on out? Are there any roles that need to be played by
cafeteria workers, teachers, administration? Will the project take more time out of someone’s
day in order to run it?
When – When will the project be implemented? How often will the taste-tests occur? Why?
How –How will the project be run? How will food safety be taken into account? How will the
taste-tests be advertised?
Recommendations – Mention any recommendations you have for ensuring this project is
successful. What features could be added to expand the project after it is launched? i.e. a survey?
Limitations – Are there any limitations to this project? Will there be anything that gets in the
way of making this possible? How can we overcome the limitations?
Final Presentation Grading Rubric
Criteria Score
Taste-test plan explained
overall
Great Detail Some Detail Little Detail
Students explain their food
safety policy proposal
Students connect the
importance of food safety due
to the risk of foodborne
illnesses
Students demonstrate that
mathematical concepts have
been considered in the
planning of their test taste
schedule
Students discuss their plan to
advertise and get other students
engaged in taste tests
Students demonstrate they
have thought of effective ways
to capture their peers attention
in their advertising/marketing
strategies
What – What is currently
being done with the food
grown on the system and what
do we want to do with it going
forward? What is the basis of
this project? What research
have we done for this project?
Discussed project in context of
local food and food systems
Mention of changes in
agriculture over years or the
benefits/uses of urban
agriculture
Why – Why is this project
important? Are there
environmental or health
benefits?
Discussed any environmental
impacts
Discussed project in context of
benefits to human health
Where – Where will our
project be implemented?
Who – Who will be involved
in making this project
possible? What
groups/classes/students need to
be included in this project from
here on out? Are there any
roles that need to be played by
cafeteria workers, teachers,
administration? Will the
project take more time out of
someone’s day to run it?
When – When will the project
be implemented? How often
will the taste-tests occur?
Why?
How – How will this all
happen? How will the project
be run? How will food safety
be considered? How will the
taste-tests be advertised? How
we will ensure we have enough
food?
Recommendations – Mention
any recommendations you
have for ensuring this project is
successful. What features could
be added to expand the project
after it is launched?
Limitations – Are there any
limitations to this project? Will
there be anything that gets in
the way of making this
possible? How can we
overcome the limitations?
Presentation was 15-20 min Yes No
Overall quality of student
presentation Good quality Average quality Poor quality
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