Growing Together: Open Forum

Hello all! I'm teaming up with our school's 5th grade teacher on a persuasive writing unit. We'd like to explore the Essential Question: "How can our food choices contribute to a healthier planet, and what actions can we take to reduce our environmental impact while nourishing ourselves and our communities?" with a focus on three solution areas: Plant-Rich Diets, Local & Sustainable Agriculture, and Reducing Food Waste. I'm currently looking for resources and approaches for introducing the climate impact of food choices and exploring these solution areas. In addition to having students write essays on contributing to a healthier plant via food choices (which will likely need to address pros and cons - with the cons being harder to find!), I'm hoping this may also lead to advocating for more meat-free meals at school, creating a collection of plant-based recipes and tips, conducing food waste audits, etc. Does anyone in the group have experience introducing this topic - or do you have ideas and resources you might share?

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Hope Gribble
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I, too, have been trying to incorporate some of these ideas for my 5th grade classes this year. 

I used The World Travels of Food lesson from FoodCorps to introduce the idea of food miles. We then talked about eating locally and with the seasons and looked at items available at our local farmer's market (I looked up farms that sell there & printed out their list of items offered/when) and created seasonal food wheels. 

I haven't used this resource from the Tech Interactive, but it looks amazing! 

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Sara Koepnick
Morgan Hill CA
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Hi Hope!  I wanted to suggest reaching out to some of our local organic farms and organizations like EarthDance, Urban Roots, and also SEED St. Louis for example.  They could be wonderful resources and offer opportunities for interviews, which could be an additional great experience for students.  They are all very knowledgable and could lead to other resources as well.

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Jeanne Fernandez
Bridgeway Elementary School
Bridgeton Mo
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Hi Hope - If you haven't checked it out yet, Center for Ecoliteracy has a resource that might be useful: Understanding Food and Climate Change: An Interactive Guide.  It's a digital resource with a cool interactive way of presenting information so it might be something that is engaging to go through with the students. It's aimed at grades 6-12 but I think it presents a lot of the information in a way that is easy to adapt to other ages. I haven't personally used this so I'd love to know if others think it would be a good resource for your project. 

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Amelia Dupuis
Kids Garden Community Manager
KidsGardening
she/her
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You might be interested in checking out Healthy Kids Happy Planet - https://healthykidshappyplanet.org/education-curriculum/

Their focus is plant based diets and they have a curriculum and other resources to go along with it.

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Kelsey Fortin
Maine Agriculture in the Classroom
Augusta ME
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Kelsey, Thank you for the resource. I teach garden classes at a public elementary (kinder through 5th). This will enhance my food units.

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Evelyn Margolin
Sacramento, CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-14-2024 01:53:57 PM
From: Kelsey Fortin
Subject: How Our Food Choices Impact Climate

You might be interested in checking out Healthy Kids Happy Planet - https://healthykidshappyplanet.org/education-curriculum/

Their focus is plant based diets and they have a curriculum and other resources to go along with it.

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Kelsey Fortin
Maine Agriculture in the Classroom
Augusta ME
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