In our "Food Chains" unit we learn about the food chains that feed America, and we attempt to identify the problems our current food system causes, while uncovering some possible solutions to fix our food system in the future. This unit culminates in students creating a website which will share information, and attempt to guide the eating choices of their fellow Americans. While we use some supplemental texts, this unit is based on the book The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. |
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Introduction to Food Chains
2/22/2021 - 2/26/2021
In Person DaysNextGen Learning Standards: 8R1, 8R3, 8R7, 8R8
Our food unit always starts with the cinematic equivalent of a kick to the face. Food, INC is an incredibly powerful documentary that pulls back the curtain on the food industry. It's a great kick-off to our unit, because it creates such buy in from students that when we crack the spine of The Omnivore's Dilemma, the book practically reads itself. Also, images like "a golden river of corn" are really much more effective when seen. During the movie portion of this unit, we stop at particularly powerful images, and students make objective observations about them. Then, we practice making inferences, in this case, the inferences will connect the information in the documentary to students' own food choices.
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At Home DaysNextGen Learning Standards: 8R1, 8R2, 8R4, 8R6
Watch Michael Pollan's TED Talk, and then write a summary of what he says as an answer to this question. The summary should be 3-5 sentences long at least. At the end, write a prediction about what will be the central focus of our Food Chains unit.
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"Research" Weeks
3/1/2021 - 3/12/2021NextGen Learning Standards: 8R1, 8R3, 8R4, 8R5, 8R7, 8R8, 8R9, 8W1, 8W2, 8W5, 8W6, 8W7, 8SL 2, 8SL3, 8SL5, 8L4
The "meat" of our unit, food pun intended, is made up of what we call our "research weeks." Basically, between The Omnivore's Dilemma text and the various and sundry TED talks that we've found, students are engaged in an inquiry-based research task to answer the questions listed on the top of our unit page, and on the connection tool, and in every discussion... They're free to find whatever answer the data suggest, and we go out of our way to find sources that support every possible interpretation of our current food systems.
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The Omnivore's Dilemma Chapter Choices
Completed during students' time in school.
Week 1: Industrial Food
This week, students will select 1-3 chapters from the Industrial and Industrial Organic sections of The Omnivore's Dilemma depending on their reading level and past performance on assignments. Each time their task will be the same: to answer some general questions to demonstrate understanding, and to collect evidence and write explanations to answer our three research questions.
How Corn Took Over AmericaIn this chapter, we'll learn how corn, and it's abundance, has largely created the vast number of processed foods that are available in supermarkets today.
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The FarmThis chapter shares how farms have changed in our country over the last fifty years. Basically, the "farms" we imagine, and the farms that are pictured on our food packaging look nothing like the actual, industrial farms that provide all our food.
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From Farm to FactoryThis chapter shares the impact of our use of fossil-fuel based nitrogen as our primary fertilizer, and the impact that it is having on the environment. If you're environmentally conscious, this chapter will really appeal to you.
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The Feedlot - Turning Corn into Meat
This is a chapter that will appeal to students who love animals, because it shares how poorly treated our animals are on feedlots. They live sick lives in piles of their own feces.
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Fat from CornIf you care about your health, this is the chapter for you. We'll learn about the health implications of eating a "variety" of foods that contains nutrients derived entirely from corn.
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Big OrganicThis chapter shares the birth of the term "organic" and how organic food ended up becoming a part of the industrial food chain.
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Week 2: Local, Sustainable Food
This week, students will select 1-3 chapters from the Local / Sustainable and the Hunter / Gatherer sections of The Omnivore's Dilemma depending on their reading level and past performance on assignments. Each time their task will be the same: to answer some general questions to demonstrate understanding, and to collect evidence to answer the questions identifying how these food chains provide some possible solutions to the problems caused by our current food system.
Polyface FarmPolyface Farm is a local, sustainable utopia. This chapter shares an overview of how Joel Salatin runs a farm very differently to the factory farming system.
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GrassThe keystone of Polyface Farm's system of growing is the grass. Salatin has growing grass down to a science, and it's that grass that allows him to grow so much meat.
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The AnimalsWhile animals are still grown for food on Polyface, their lives are much different than factory farmed animals. This chapter shares how it's possible for Polyface to produce a lot of meat without mistreating animals.
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Eating AnimalsEating Animals is the section of the book that most succinctly describes "The Omnivore's Dilemma," and discusses the thought process behind whether or not to eat meat.
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HuntingHunting is the most local and sustainable way to get our food, because there is virtually no food chain - the animal and the eater meet in the middle.
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GatheringIf you like the idea of a short food chain, but hate the idea of killing an animal, then gathering might be for you. Gathering is exactly what it sounds like, walking out in the world and finding edible plants.
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TED Talks Choice Texts
Completed during students' time at home.
In this short clip, Jamie Oliver shares his experience with kids from West Virginia the difference between real and processed chicken. Never has the problem with our food systems been more succinctly embodied. He goes on to share thoughts about the importance of teaching our kids about food, and sharing some staggering statistics about the amount of sugar our kids ingest JUST IN SCHOOL.
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Ann Cooper is the me of lunch ladies. Her speech about how she has drastically changed the lunch program in Berkeley, California is an inspiration, and ever time I plan a unit, I think of her. She shares some amazing insights about how to fund revolutionary change for our students diet, and the importance of getting kids on the right dietary track early in their lives, and in a formal way within the constructs of the school day. Ann, if you'd like to share lunch with me, look me up through my contacts page, we could drive some serious change together.
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We think that we NEED to use factory farms and the industrial food system just to keep up with the demand of our growing, human population, but that isn't actually the case according to Tristram Stuart. In this interesting talk full of food-waste imagery, easy to understand connections between crackers and the global food supply, and simple solutions that we can employ today, Stuart will win you over to the side of moving towards less waste, and a more sustainable future for our food.
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Detroit generally carries negative connotations. We hear "Detroit" and think about crime and the fallen glory of the American auto industry. Davita Davidson, on the other hand, sees Detroit as the positive epicenter for sustainable farming practices. Davidson talks about sustainable farming from both a business and a health perspective, and shares a message of hope.
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We are trained to hear the letters "GMO" and think "poison." We know they're somthing to avoid. Pamela Ronald, a geneticist, shares why that mentality may be false, and shares some insight into the role that genetically modified organisms have on our food system.
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We think of farms as the main source of food, and we worry about the environment from a land-based perspective. Jackie Savitz shares how the 2/3 of our planet covered in water could be the key to feeding the human population in the future in this interesting speech titled "Save the oceans, feed the planet."
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While it's easy to vilify factory farming, it is very important to realize what an amazing success it is. While this conversation doesn't have the same powerful imagery as some of the others, it share how over thirty years, we have been incredibly successful at producing a lot of food.
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Jill Farrant is another researcher who is in favor of GMO's. A lot of people think that genetically modifying our food is a recipe for disaster for our health, and the environment, but she makes some important points about why they might actually benefit both of those factors.
Transcript
Bilingual Transcript
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This video makes an unlikely connection between diet and students' ability to learn! If you watched and loved Ann Cooper's rant about school lunches, you'll probably enjoy this more scientific look at the importance of a healthy diet on developing students.
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If there's one description we all think about when it comes to farming, it would be "outside," but what if the future of farming was inside? In this interesting TED Talk the world of farming is turned inside out, or is it turned outside, in? Either way, click, watch, and enjoy!
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It's easy to demonize factory farming, but it's hard to argue with the incredible efficiency with which it creates affordable food for us. These two final videos share how factory farming has come to produce so much food, so quickly, so that we're never hungry and we can afford to spend our money on things like smart phones and cool jeans.
Web Design Project
Project DescriptionFor our food chains unit, we create and publish a website that answers the question: How will food become more than a health issue in the future? Click on some of the links below to see what amazing work our students have created. Students write evidence-based summaries of each food chain, and based on those descriptions, they craft a digital argument explaining whether or not each of four food chains should drive our future. There is no right answer! Each food chain has pros and cons, so students are free to truly explore their options.
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Success Skills
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Web Design Tools
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Food Chains Connection ToolOur connection tools have been met with wild approval from students, co-teachers, and parents alike. It's nice to deal with a single, predictable learning structure across units, with just 5%-10% difference to meet each unit's specific needs. This unit, you'll notice some color coding, and that the connection tool is based on problems and solutions, with no mention of the word "claim." While the [evidence-explanation] paired structures are still intact, they will never become an essay. They'll be used independently in conjunction with pictures, sections, and embedded videos to create a valuable web resource.
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Persuasive Writing PracticeObviously, an important part of our web-design process is the writing we publish. At this point, we've collected a lot of factual evidence and written explanations that were at least close to objective. Now is the time to get PERSUASIVE!!! Students will learn how to use ethos, pathos, and logos to convince their web viewers what they should think, feel, and believe about the food chains research we've done.
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This tutorial serves as the "nuts and bolts" tool of our web-design project. It is the one-stop shop for all things Google Sites. While this explains, with obvious arrows and annotations, exactly how to use the Google Sites software, just using the tools provided will do very little by itself. To create an effective website, it will be imperative to offer valuable information by incorporating the text from the Food Chains Connection Tool above, and to follow the advice shared in the web-design considerations Slides shared below.
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On the Importance of Photo LayeringStudents always go CRAZY with photo layering. They get excited so they create layers on layers on layers of incomprehensible photos. Do you know why art studios are always a sea of modern, minimalist white walls and lightly stained hardwood floors? To avoid photo layering. I've intentionally offered countless, positive examples of photo layering on my website.
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Hyperlinks - "Do's" and "Don'ts"Hyperlinks are so easy to do correctly that it's just an expression of digital laziness to put in long-form hyperlinks. I'll show you how to insert hyperlinks, in a variety of ways, and demonstrate how inserting hyperlinks correctly just leads to a cleaner, and more user-friendly digital tool.
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How to Create an Ideal HomepageThis tool offers advice specific to our Food Chains web-design project. It is not universal advice for anyone hoping to create an effective homepage. Below, I've linked some examples of effective homepages.
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Web Design Process [Sustained Inquiry Loops]
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This process is repeated four times: once for each week of the unit.
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Professional Website Evaluation |
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Web-Design Evaluation
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Super Student
Web-Design Exemplars |
Common Core Literacy Standards Addressed by this Project