Food Lesson: Impact of Food Production
Lesson Plan
1 hourGrades6, 7, 8Social Studies
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Written by Kate Strangfeld, Ben Charles
About this lesson
This lesson teaches students about the different steps in food production and how each step contributes to climate change.
Inquire: Students think about the steps involved in the production of a single food.
Investigate: Students investigate specific foods to see how different stages of the supply chain contribute to a food’s carbon footprint.
Inspire: Students review their Food Trackers to identify which of the foods they consumed had the largest carbon footprint.
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Everything you need to teach it
How to edit these materials (video)Teaching tips
Suggestions
- Teachers can use the Inspire discussion or writing as a formative assessment or to practice specific writing skills. Teachers can use their own discussion or writing rubrics to evaluate student responses.
- This lesson can be taught alongside a Carbon Footprint of Food math lesson.
- Students connect climate change to their everyday life by thinking about what foods they eat and how they may impact the planet.
- Students can explore their own cultural or ethnic foods or foods often served in the school cafeteria.
- Students are able to analyze complex data in a way that is highly scaffolded and supported.
Prerequisites
- This is lesson 2 of 6 in our 6th-8th grade Food & Climate Change Unit.
- Students should be able to read a bar graph that has a key.
Differentiation
- Teachers can assign the Teacher Slideshow on Google Classroom and students can submit their work independently.
- For the Data Explorer section, teachers can use an open-ended version that has broad questions or a guided version that has more specific questions to help students identify trends.
- Teachers can eliminate options in the guided research section if the options are overwhelming.
- Teachers can review the Teacher Slideshow as a class and answer the questions as a whole group assignment.
- Students can further research the largest amount of current food production and consumption nationally and globally.
- Students can engage in additional research beginning with these resources:
From the scientist review
The lesson has students analyze carbon footprint from different sources of food. From production, packaging, transportation, consumption, and disposal, all these activities increase carbon footprint and cause harm to the environment. This lesson inspires students to take urgent action to reduce individual carbon footprint from the food system. All materials are well-sourced and were thoroughly fact-checked to ascertain their credibility. Thus, this lesson is recommended for teaching.
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About the teacher writers
Kate Strangfeld
6-12 Chemistry Teacher
I'm a current student at Harvard Graduate School of Education and previously taught middle school science and high school chemistry for 8 years in Washington, DC. I also love to cook and be active. I focus on designing lessons that are hands-on and use real-world scenarios to make science engaging and approachable to students. I'm also currently exploring how we can use cooking and food to teach chemistry in a more interesting & relatable way.
Ben Charles
Chief of Partnerships and Communication
Ben Charles holds a Master's Degree in Teaching from Relay Graduate School of Education. He has nine years of experience teaching grades 3–7 across multiple subject areas. His expertise includes interdisciplinary instruction designed to support diverse learners and foster meaningful student engagement
