Hi everyone! It’s time for my next entry in my Food For Thought Series. Recapping from my last post, I am currently volunteering with a non-profit organization called SustainED, which is designing and piloting a short Food Sustainability curriculum into a middle school. Since my last post, I’ve been working with my colleagues in designing lesson plans for the curriculum, and I was able to implement a couple of those lessons already with a few of my colleagues!
First impressions, I feel that I am achieving my targeted learning goals: Creating lessons that are educational and engaging for students using little classroom technology, learning how to optimally implement food sustainability that relates to curriculum expectations, and to learn how to relate food sustainability to the lives of the students using lesson design and instruction. The biggest obstacle that I faced however, is my inexperience in the middle-school classroom structure, where the periods are shortened to around 45-minutes. I personally felt that the classes are a mad-dash and it has me worried that students may not have meaningful learning.
For our first lesson we designed it to be more personal, where students would identify what food meant to them, emphasizing diverse cultures in the class and the students’ memories. The students (and myself) were very excited, where I found their energy towards learning refreshing. My colleague led the class, where I acted like a monitor interacting with students as they completed their activities. I found that during this time, the students were excited to learn about food and each other as they talked about memories. The reasoning behind linking food personally to the students is to set their mentality in understanding how food affects them, and in turn as the lessons advance the effects they have on food and the environment. This relates to a study by Jay Shuttleworth I read that looks at how food sustainability is taught through social issues. In this study he speaks of the learning goals of a social studies teacher is to “aim to spur student discussion about how their decisions may influence other humans as well as ecosystems” (Shuttleworth, 2015). I feel that what Shuttleworth describes as a teacher learning goal, also aligns with how we’re trying to set up the pilot project. By making food personal for the students, it may be easier to redirect their energy in learning about the issues around food sustainability.
I found that this first lesson focused on social studies, as the curriculum fit the personal lens we put on the lesson. Later lessons will include subjects such as science and math as the students will learn topics like how food affects their bodies, and the distance food has to travel to reach our grocery stores. Overall, I’m really excited to be a part of this pilot program, my colleagues, the students, and the host teacher have all been warm and a pleasure to work with. That being said, I’m still trying to adjust to the shorter lesson times, and I’m hoping to get some experience and advice throughout my time at the school, or even blogging.
I find myself asking a few questions at this stage in the curriculum. When planning for middle school students. What are some sustainable options when creating resources for the students to work with? This is because in the program I find that handouts work best with the students, but we end up using a lot of paper. Secondly, how can we ensure deep student learning with the short time frame? I believe that as a teacher when I find myself feeling rushed, there’s a chance students are feeling rushed too. Finally, outside of sustainability, what other important topics can teachers implement into their lessons that extend beyond curriculum expectations? As a social sciences teacher, this question really has me interested as I want to see how we can incorporate other topics and issues using different subjects.
That’s all the time I have for today, until the next course!
References:
Shuttleworth, J. (2015) Teaching the Social Issues of a Sustainable Food Supply, The Social Studies,106(4), 159-169, DOI: 10.1080/00377996.2015.1043602
Thumbnail Picture From The Sugar Shack in Quebec. Retrieved From: https://www.quebecregion.com/en/businesses/regional-delights/maple/sugar-shacks/erabliere-du-lac-beauport/
Food For Thought 