Name: Amanda Berg
Title: Fighting Injustice- Where are we now?
Time Needed: Several 30 min class periods
Subject Area/Topic: Social Studies-Food Justice
Grade Level: 3rd
Essential Questions of Unit:
Guiding Questions of Lesson:
Materials:
-vocabulary words on note cards
-paper with organization and website listed
-hat
-notebooks and pencils for notes and interview questions
-chart paper
-markers
-art supplies
-poster board
-access to computer lab
MMSD Curriculum Standards Connections:
Grade 3 Content Focus: Madison & Communities around the World
History:
6.Identify examples of freedom (rights and responsibilities) and justice (fairness) in Madison’s history
Political Science and Citizenship:
4.Recognize and interpret how the “common good” can be strengthened through various forms of citizen action.
Economics:
1.Describe the ways people participate in the community in order to provide goods and services whether through paid or volunteer activities.
Behavioral Science:
6.Demonstrates an ability to interact within a group while performing various group roles (i.e. organizing, planning, and goal setting).
NCSS Standards Connections:
Individuals, Groups, and Institutions
Power, Authority, and Governance
Production, Distribution, and Consumption
Civic Ideals and Practices
Elementary Education Standards Connections:
Standard 2: Understands the social context of schooling.
Standard 6: Connects school and community
Standard 7: Understands and adapts to multiple forms of communication
Lesson Objectives:
Lesson Context:
Lesson Opening:
Procedural Steps:
**Growing Power (http://www.growingpower.org/)
**Community GroundWorks (http://www.communitygroundworks.org/)
**Dane County Farmer’s Market (http://dcfm.org/)
**Edible Schoolyards (http://edibleschoolyard.org/)
Lesson Closure:
Assessment Strategies:
Title: Fighting Injustice- Where are we now?
Time Needed: Several 30 min class periods
Subject Area/Topic: Social Studies-Food Justice
Grade Level: 3rd
Essential Questions of Unit:
- What is the relationship between privilege, poverty, and consumption?
- What are the implications of access to nutritious food for a community?
- How do we as students become involved in the food justice movement?
Guiding Questions of Lesson:
- What organizations already exist that are tackling these issues?
- What work has already been done to make access to good food more equitable?
Materials:
-vocabulary words on note cards
-paper with organization and website listed
-hat
-notebooks and pencils for notes and interview questions
-chart paper
-markers
-art supplies
-poster board
-access to computer lab
MMSD Curriculum Standards Connections:
Grade 3 Content Focus: Madison & Communities around the World
History:
6.Identify examples of freedom (rights and responsibilities) and justice (fairness) in Madison’s history
Political Science and Citizenship:
4.Recognize and interpret how the “common good” can be strengthened through various forms of citizen action.
Economics:
1.Describe the ways people participate in the community in order to provide goods and services whether through paid or volunteer activities.
Behavioral Science:
6.Demonstrates an ability to interact within a group while performing various group roles (i.e. organizing, planning, and goal setting).
NCSS Standards Connections:
Individuals, Groups, and Institutions
Power, Authority, and Governance
Production, Distribution, and Consumption
Civic Ideals and Practices
Elementary Education Standards Connections:
Standard 2: Understands the social context of schooling.
Standard 6: Connects school and community
Standard 7: Understands and adapts to multiple forms of communication
Lesson Objectives:
- Students will remember the meaning of several key food justice terminology we have been using over the course of the unit.
- Students will work with a group to research a food justice organization, discovering what their mission is, what they do, where they do their work, and how others can get involved.
- Students will prepare a presentation for the class about the organization they researched.
- Students will use previously learned interviewing skills to develop relevant questions to ask representatives of their organization.
- Along with me or another adult, students will be able to contact and interview representatives from their organization.
- Students will be able to develop and verbalize questions they still have about food justice and the work that is being done to end injustice.
- Students will be able to vocalize what they have learned from our REAP representative in our class thank you letter.
Lesson Context:
- This lesson will follow directly after students have already learned about and discussed where food comes from and the distance food travels from the farm to the table. They will also have explored how both income and location can play a role in the accessibility of food. Students will have had many questions about what is being done to make things more equitable and will have probably already brought up some of these organizations, especially REAP since we receive snack through the REAP Farm-to-School program. Additionally, students will be using interviewing skills in this lesson that they previously acquired through interviewing their peers and other faculty members at the beginning of the school year. As a class, we will already have discussed how to politely ask someone for an interview, how to prepare, and the types of questions to ask. I will already have contacted a representative from REAP to come and speak to my class as a guest.
Lesson Opening:
- I will call students to the carpet, and on the dry erase board have students come up with a list of the issues we have come across already since the beginning of our unit. I will then ask students how they are feeling, learning about all of these injustices. I will then tell students that we are now going to be exploring what some of the responses have been and efforts that have been made toward achieving equity.
Procedural Steps:
- I will tell my students that many other people have noticed the injustices of our current food system and people have made efforts to help end injustice and make good food accessible for all.
- I will then review key vocabulary that has come up throughout the unit with my students. To review, students will be split up into two groups. Each group will be given a vocabulary term that they must describe to the other group without using the exact word. The group describing can use words or actions, as long as they don’t say the word! The other group must try and guess what word they are describing. Then the groups will switch roles until we have reviewed all the key terms. Terms we will discuss include: Food miles, food desert, food scarcity, resources, access, social action, equity, justice, consumption, and privilege.
- I will then be splitting students up into groups of three. Each group will randomly select out of a hat one of the nonprofit organizations or resources who have taken on food justice. Students will receive the name of the organization and an email address where they can find out more. The organizations students could potentially receive include:
**Growing Power (http://www.growingpower.org/)
**Community GroundWorks (http://www.communitygroundworks.org/)
**Dane County Farmer’s Market (http://dcfm.org/)
**Edible Schoolyards (http://edibleschoolyard.org/)
- Students will then quickly review with me what it means to be a good researcher and how we as third graders will be accurate, complete, and safe while researching. Our librarian will briefly review researching with students too when we go to the computer lab.
- I will then tell students that they will be expected to collect information from their research and develop a way to present their information to the group. They must also be prepared to answer questions about their organizations.
- Students will also be encouraged to develop questions they have for the organization or about food justice in general.
- We will spend a few days during our social studies and library time researching and developing our presentations. Students may use whatever materials and means they want to present what they have learned and may seek out additional resources or help from adults.
- Once groups have had sufficient time to research and develop their presentations, each group will have the opportunity to showcase their organization to the rest of the class. The rest of the class will be encouraged to ask questions and notice similarities between organizations and their purposes.
- After the presentations, we will make a list of the questions we still have about achieving food justice.
- We will have a representative from REAP come to speak to our class (which I would have prearranged) and answer our questions.
Lesson Closure:
- As closure to this particular segment of our unit, students will write a collective thank you note to our guest, informing the guest of some of the things they have learned in the unit so far and what specifically they learned from our guest.
Assessment Strategies:
- I will first be informally assessing how my students knowledge has already expanded with the vocabulary activity. Not only do they have to know the words, but also the meaning so that they can describe them. I will also be assessing my students during their presentation, both their explanation of their organization and their ability to answer questions about it. I will also be able to assess students’ level of thinking with the questions they ask the guest, and their level of reflection through the letter we write her at the end.