Food

("Hostess Beef Twinkies" Image Source: http://www.strangepersons.com/content/item/16593.html)

**Adapted from the Center for the Urban Environment's Lesson -**
=**Sustainability: Where Does our Food Come From?**=

**Focusing Questions:** What should we eat? What’s the true cost of a twinkie? How do our choices affect food production?
 * Big Ideas. ** Food, Sustainability, Interdependence
 * Essential Question**: Are we responsible for what we consume?

**Skills:** Listening, Notetaking, Determining Reliability of Information, Determining Relevant/Non-Relevant Information. Organizing notes into oral and written presentations.
 **Enduring Understandings**. Students will understand that processed food has a cost to the environment and to our personal health. We can vote with our wallets. The money we pay for food supports the production of these foods and how the foods are produced.

====**Content.** Videos: //The True Cost of Food. Food Inc.// Green Library Books: //Omnivore's Dilemma. Chew on This//. Sustainability. Costs of different foods to the environment. Cost to move foods long distances. Buying local foods. Externalizing the Costs.====

**Word Work**: Sustainability, Externalizing the Cost, Omnivore, Carnivore, Herbivore.

 * Formative Assessments**: Thinking maps. **Summative Assessments.** Students compose oral, digital, and written reports of information.

**"McDonald's" Game - Students can find out how a fast food company makes its profits.**
media type="file" key="mcdonalds-eng.swf" width="1442" height="497" align="left"

The True Cost of Food We have copies of this cartoon video.

Resources: http://www.sierraclub.org/truecostoffood/

= = = ("Hostess Beef Twinkies" Image Source: http://www.strangepersons.com/content/item/16593.html) = = = = =

Essential Question:** What foods are healthy for the body, for brain development?
 * YOU MIGHT WANT TO START WITH the lesson below, instead of the lesson above.


 * Essential Topical Question**: What are nutrients; why do we need them?
 * Motivation:** What is your favorite food?
 * Content**. Nutrients, food pyramid, food groups, organic foods, processed foods. Thinking maps.
 * Skills.** Internet research. Determining reliability of websites. Paragraph. Report of information.
 * Plan:** Students brainstormed foods. Students categorized foods into food groups, using the food pyramid as a guide. Groups researched the essential nutrients of the various food groups. Students brought in samples of the various food groups.


 * Assessments.** Students made small work projects (brochures, layered booklets) on the essential food groups.

For related material, see: Literacy - //Seedolks;// Sustainability; video //- The Story of Stuff// movie is available for viewing and downloading at http://www.storyofstuff.com/. For our network, it is better to download it to your computer and then view it.