Lesson 2

Content Area Standards

Social Studies:
  • 5.G.1.2 Explain the positive and negative effects of human activity on the physical environment of the United States, past and present.
  • 5.E.1.2 Explain the impact of production, specialization, technology and division of labor on the economic growth of the United States.
  • 5.G.1.3 Exemplify how technological advances (communication, transportation and agriculture) have allowed people to overcome geographic limitations.​
Science:
  • 5.L.2.3 Infer the effects that may result from the interconnected relationship of plants and animals to their ecosystem

Objectives

Students will be able to:
  • Compare and contrast how farming has changed in size, location, and the technology it uses order to accommodate the increasing consumer demands and how over time our increased consumption and production demands on farming have negatively impacted our environment.
  • Explain how technology advances have allowed people to overcome geographic limitations HOWEVER those advancements have had both positive and negative impacts over time.
  • Recognize that plants and animals are interconnected and explain how their relationship can impact the environment.

Materials and Resources

Presentation, 5 printed school lunches 
5 poster boards to go next to each one
Markers for students to write on poster board
Journals for students
Crayons + Colored pencils for farm picture
1 piece of Chart Paper

Concepts

Production, Consumption, Change Over Time, Supply and Demand, Interdependence, Lifecycle

Prior Preperation

  • Take photographs of 5 school lunches the week prior to teaching this lesson.
  • Display lunch images and corresponding poster board beside each image for gallery walk. Divide poster into 4 sections with the following questions in each square: 
    1. List what you would eat from this lunch?  
    2. Why would you eat that/those item?
    3. What would you throw out of this lunch?
    4. Why would you throw that item/items out?  On this question, write out possible answers and ask students to indicate which answer most closely resembles their answer. Possible sample answers:
      1. It looked weird, I didn’t know what it was, I ran out of time to eat it, I did not know where it came from, I was full, Other
  • Hang 1 piece of chart paper in the front of the room.
  • ​Ready Prezi© slideshow presentation.
  • Gather crayons, markers, colored pencils for journaling.

Prerequsite Knowledge

Students must have knowlege on what a consumer is. Students must also know what influences them to purchase or consume goods and how thier consumer habbits have consequences.

Accommodations

Scaffolding will be adjusted to meet students' needs.  

Assessment

I used to think...Now I think
Students will be asked to draw a picture of a farm looks like. The students will have to incorporate the journal questions into their pictures by either writing them in or drawing them. At the end of the lesson students will be asked to redraw their image of a farm and re-answer the journal questions. As a whole class the students will discuss the changes they see from the pictures and answers.

Instructional Procedure

What did it REALLY take to get my school lunch here?
  • Open the lesson by recapping what what it means to be a consumer and different factors that motivate us to buy. Use Prezi© or other images to initiate a conversation.
  • ​Conversation starters and questions: 
    • ​​What makes you want to get this meal?  What are the benefits of buying the meal?  Are there any consequences to buying this meal?
  • Use Prezi©, to show students photographs of school lunches they ate the week prior. ​
  • ​​​Consumerism doesn’t just happen at a restaurant, grocery store, mall or fast food business.  Explain to students that they are also consumers in school and that their choices matter.  Invite students to take a closer look at their choices during lunchtime.  ​​
What our school lunch choices look like
  • Using the five images of school lunches and poster board questions, invite students to participate in a gallery walk around the room, observing and answering the poster board questions.  Instruct students to indicate their answer to question 4 with a star or other mark next to the answer that most closely resembles their decision to discard food. 
  • Initiate the class in discussion by reading aloud selected written responses from the gallery walk.  Inform students that this exercise intends to raise self awareness of their choices in the lunchroom in order for them to make more informed decisions in the future.  ​
  • Use Prezi© to view images of school lunch waste.  Invite the students to share what type of waste they see.  Guide a discussion to include food, packaging, and other one-time-use items.
  • ​Conversation starters and questions: 
    • How much time do you think goes into making your meal?  How did the food get to our school? What resources were used to grow those carrots you see in the picture? How much money and time was invested in the cow that produced the milk in the carton? 
  • Inform students that they will be able to answer those questions at the end of this lesson.  They will learn about the time, resources, and environmental impacts that make up the true cost of school lunch.
What is the True Costs of My School Lunch?
  • The image of the hamburger, fries, milk, and apple will be chosen by the students to investigate and displayed on the prezi.
  1. As a whole group students will be asked the pre-assessment questions. The questions will be displayed on Prezi as well. The teacher will record some class answers on the single piece of chart paper in the front of the room. ​ 
    1. Round 1 Questions:
      1. Where do you think hamburger came from?
        1. A farm...if so where is the farm?
      2. Tell me a timeline of how long it takes beef to go from farm to fork? Days? Weeks? Months?
      3. What resources go into raising beef cattle?
      4. Any environmental impacts?

Where does my hamburger come from?
  1. As a whole class the teacher will say, “We are going to investigate these questions starting with  questions 1: "Where does the hamburger come from?":
    1. Students will take 5 minutes to draw a picture in their journal of what they think a cattle farm looks like. On their farm they will have to draw or write their answers to the Round I questions above. (1st part of I used to think now I think)
    2. Next, on the Prezi will be a picture of an ideal farm. The students will be asked to raise their hand if they drew a farm that resembles something like the image on the board. They will be asked why did they draw their farm this way? Was it on the milk carton? Did they see it in a commercial?
      1. The teacher will explain the students that this was what a typical farm looked like 200 years ago in the 1800’s.
      2. Students will be asked what they notice about this picture?
        1. ​Guided Answers:
          1. The people are driving carts attached to horses.
          2. You don’t see any farm equipment because they didn’t have any. Labor was all done by hand or equipment was attached to a horse to pull.
          3. Lots of space​
      3. On Prezi, the students will shown a world map that shows the land use and population from the year 1800.
        1. Students will be asked what do they notice in this picture?
          1. ​Guided Answers:
            1. U.S is mostly wetlands (marshes/ Swamps not good for framing) the light green is where they would farm, get wood, etc.
            2. Notice where the population is mostly located…. Along the coast and where the resources are.
        2. So what does a cattle farm look like today?”
      4. On the Prezi there will be pictures of the Amazon Rainforest being cleared for cattle farms.
        1. Facts on Prezi:
          1. Our population has increased to over 7 BILLION over the past 200 years.
          2. Every 6 seconds an acre (which is about a football field) in the Amazon rainforest is cut down for cattle farming.
      5. Students will be asked, "Why is this happening? 200 years ago we didn’t have the power to clear this many trees in this amount of time. Or the amount of food to feed this many cattle? What changed?
      6. Next on the Prezi, there will be two World Maps side-by-side that show land use and population . One map of the year 1800 and one 2017.
        1. Students will be asked how has the population changed?
          1. ​Guided Answers:
            1. 7 times the amount. (1 billion to 7 billion)
            2. Notice how much more dense settlements areas are on the 2017 map.
        2. How has the land changed?
          1. ​Guided Answers:
            1. Most of the wetlands gone
            2. We’ve created rangeland (that were not there 200 years ago) for cattle to graze in.. notice where this area is on the US map
            3. Created Croplands in the U.S. ​

How long does it take to go from farm to fork?
  1. Question 2 Investigation: How long does it take to go from farm to fork? Teacher will reread some of the student’s pre-assessment answers that were jotted down on the chart paper.
  2. On the Prezi, the teacher will show a timeline to demonstrate the time it takes cattle to go farm to fork. Each step of the timeline is set to fade in separately so the teacher will ask the students their predictions for each step.
    1. ​Farm to fork process:
      1. Calves are in the womb for 9 months
      2. Calves are weaned from their mothers at 6-10 month.
      3. They are taken to a pasture or rangeland to feed on grass for 12-16 months.
      4. Then the cattle is sold at an auction and sent to a feedlot
      5. At the feedlot the cattle eat grain-based diets of mixed corn, soy, wheat, and barley until they are 18-22 months or 1,200-1,400 lbs.
      6. Then the cattle are slaughtered.
        1. For 1,200 lb. steer, about 750 lbs. of meat will be used.
      7. Meet dries for 2 weeks
      8. Reaches grocery stores about a month and a half later.
      9. Totaling 2 years and 11 months from farm to fork.
  3. Teacher will touch on food miles, the distance the beef traveled going from place to place during its short life.
  4. The students will spend a few minutes doing the thinking routine feel, think, wondering as they evaluate the timeline.​

What resources are being used?
  1. Questions 3: The teacher will recap the student’s original chart paper answers to the question: “What resources go into raising beef cattle?
    1. The Prezi has brackets for Water, Food, Land, and Gas.
      1. Water
        1. Water- will show the image, “Eat a steak or take a bath. One 8oz. stake takes 17 bathtubs full of water.
        2. The next image for water will show animal agriculture uses 55 percent of the USA’s water.
        3. Meat + Dairy industry use 1/3 of the Earth's Fresh Water
        4. 1 hamburger = enough water to shower for 2 months.
      2. Food + Land image together
        1. Images shows how 1.3 billion cattle occupy 24% of the worlds land. (teacher will reference that is as much cattle as there were people on the plant in the early 1800’s, cattle population has exploded)
        2. The same picture will also show how farm animals consume 40% of the world’s grain.
        3. Facts on slide: How much water goes into making cattle's food?:
          1. Steers eat about 32 lbs of food a day on a feedlot. Their food consists of wheat, corn, soybeans:
            1. One lb. of Corn = 108 gallons of water PER LB.
            2. One lb. Wheat = 138 gallons of water PER LB.
            3. 1 lb of Soybeans = 206 gallons of water PER LB.
      3. Gas
        1. Images shows one 6 oz. beefsteak takes about .1587 gallons of gas.
        2. Fact on Prezi - 14,000 lb steer  uses 592.48 gallons of gas during its lifetime.
      4. As a whole group the class will compare and contrast their previous chart paper and journal answers.

What are the environment impacts?
  1. Questions 4: Are there any environmental impacts? By looking at the images on the prezi the students could say:
    1. Water resources
    2. Deforestation, land consumption
    3. Food miles + gas = use of natural gases
  2. As a whole group the class will compare and contrast their previous chart paper and journal answers the facts.
  3. Next, with their new knowledge students will take 10-15 minutes to re-draw their farm, and in their picture they can either write or draw their new answers to the questions below: (2nd part of I used to think now I think)
    1. Where does this hamburger come from?
    2. How long does it take to go from farm to fork?
    3. What resources go into raising beef cattle?
    4. Any environmental impacts?
Teacher will hold group discussion about how and why their farm has changed.​
Closure: 
Rethinking our Choices
  1. On Prezi, The teacher will go back to the image of the school waste. The teacher will ask the students:
    1. Knowing how much time and effort goes into 1 piece of food how do you feel about looking at all of this school trash?
    2. How do you feel about your choice to throw a half eaten hamburger away now? Or any half eaten food?
      1. Teacher will explain, "It's not just a waste of food, it's wasting all the resources that went into making, growing, and producing all the items you see in the trashcan. We are all interconnected."

​Brainstorming Solutions
  1. Is there something we could do instead? Or is there someone else who could use this food we don't want?
    1. As a whole group the class will begin to brainstorm solutions to eliminating school food waste.
      1. Guided Answers:
        1. Reusable take home containers for leftover lunch food we want to eat later.
        2. Reaching out to a local homeless shelter to give them their leftover cafeteria food.
        3. Creating signs and artwork around the cafeteria educating their peers on where their food comes from.
          1. Listing food miles above the items of the meal
          2. Listing where it was grown above the items in the lunch line
  2. Students will then be given 3 minutes to jot down some of their favorite brainstorming ideas in their journals.

The Investigation Continues: Transition into lesson 3
  1. Students will be asked, "Besides food, what else do you notice in the trash? What is in there that is NOT food"
    1. Guided Answers:
      1. Styrofoam lunch trays
      2. Milk Carton
      3. Spork
      4. Plastic from spork
      5. Napkins
      6. condiment packets
  2. Students will be asked, "You just learned all that goes into making and getting your food here. What do you think goes into making all the non-consumable waste that we throw out at school? Tomorrow we are going to investigate that question."