Nourish: Food and Community

This instructional resource contains a curriculum guide about food and sustainability.

Description

This instructional resource contains a curriculum guide that offers a rich set of resources to open a meaningful conversation about food and sustainability. The activities are interactive, well organized, and easy to follow. Overall objectives are listed in the curriculum. Students engage in the “story of food,” use critical thinking skills to reflect on current food practices and explore more sustainable ones, and link their learning to relevant action. The activities can be used in any sequence. The Nourish film traces the relationship to food from a global perspective to personal action steps. The curriculum can be used in social studies, science, health, or English classes.

What’s Inside

The curriculum includes a viewing guide, six learning activities, and suggestions for action projects, student handouts, bibliography, and glossary. Activity themes include The Story of Food; Seasonal, Local Food; Food Traditions; Food and Ecosystems; Analyzing Food Ads; and School Lunch Survey.

Activity Highlight

In Activity 2, Seasonal, Local Food, students define what a food “in season” means and discuss two foods brought into the classroom—one that is in season and one that is not. The class may engage in a tasting, and students can generate descriptive adjectives of the food. Students can also draw a circle with a 150-mile radius around their community and discuss what “local food” means. They make a “seasonal circle” and resource booklet to help them and their families find local, seasonal food in their community. The curriculum includes Nourish Action Projects with directions for choosing, planning, implementing, and reflecting on projects that could be the foundation for project-based learning activities.

Key Content Areas: After School, Cafeteria Connections, Food Literacy and Cooking Activities, Garden-based, Healthy School Environment, Integrated Subjects, and Media Literacy