Food from the Farm to Your Table Unit

 

Eating Local

MMSD Standards Addressed:
Social Studies
  • Political Science and Citizenship: List ways they can participate responsibly in their community.
Health
  • Advocacy: Identify ways to help others make positive health choices.

NCSS Standards Addressed:
  • Production, Distribution, and Consumption
  • Individual, Groups, and Institutions

Goals of Lesson:
  • Students will define eating local.
  • Students will state places and ways to eat local.
  • Students will understand the benefits and drawbacks of eating local food.
  • Students will promote eating local food.

Essential Question:
  • What are the benefits and limitations of eating locally?

Materials Needed:
  • white board
  • dry erase markers
  • Steps in the Food Industry Process poster (from Lesson 2)
  • poster paper (one for each group of approximately three students)
  • markers and other art supplies for creating posters
  • tape

Procedures:
  1. Review the term eating local and ways and places we can eat local.  Eating local can be defined as eating food that has been grown and remained in the local community and its surroundings.
  2. Review the steps in the food industry process from the poster.
  3. Ask students what steps could be eliminated or decreased by getting our food locally (farmers' markets, gardens, farms, etc).  Examples include decreasing transportation costs and time, cut advertising and packaging, etc.
  4. Talk about the benefits and drawbacks of eating local food.  Benefits include more food dollars stay in the local economy, help keep the farmers in business, help the environment (less gas used for transportation and less waste from packaging), eat food that is in season, put a face to your food (know who produced the food, connection between consumer and product).  Drawbacks of buying local food include limited access to a great variety of foods (example bananas for those who live in Wisconsin), certain foods are unavailable in winter, and our community might not have a farmers' market or we might not have room for a garden.
  5. Students will get in small groups of about three students per group.  Pass out poster paper and markers and supplies for creating the posters to each group.  Groups will create a poster promoting eating local food.  Each poster should include a definition of eating local, benefits of eating local foods, and how and where to get local food.  Specific places and names of where to buy local food in the community can and should be mentioned (grocery stores, restaurants, farmers' markets).  Groups may include other things on their poster as well, such as pictures of local food, when certain foods are in season, facts about eating/buying local, etc.
  6. When completed, groups will share their posters with the class.
  7. Posers will be posted around the school and/or community if the teacher asks the business for permission.  Groups will choose where they would like their poster posted and the teacher will hang up the posters after school.

Assessment:
  • I will assess the first three goals informally by listening to the discussion on eating local food.
  • I will formally assess the first three goals by observing that students included a definition and benefits of eating local foods and how and where to get local food on their posters.
  • I will assess the goal that students will promote eating local food by checking to see that each group completes their poster and chooses a place to hang it within the school or community.