Students explore the impact of food waste on our communities, focusing on how students can take action to reduce food waste. Students investigate why food is thrown away, how they can reduce the amount of food disposed of, and ensure that food waste is composted to contribute to healthy environments. Students also develop an understanding of where their food waste goes when it is thrown away instead of composted.
Students will develop an understanding of the food decomposition process, how landfilled organic waste releases greenhouse gases, and how food scraps can be used to create compost. Lessons introduce strategies that students can commit to as individuals as well as strategies that may take schoolwide effort. The unit culminates with an action plan to help students and the school community waste less food. Pairing action with learning helps students to feel empowered and hopeful.
“The message that there are solutions to help us combat climate change and that people are working together to solve problems helped students stay in a place of curiosity; they didn’t show anxiety over the content.”
“My students often refer to the experience and knowledge gained. I plan to use Seeds to Solutions lessons in the future.”
“I truly enjoyed teaching this. It has been heartwarming to see them care about other living things and the environment.”
“There is something for all different kinds of learners. We are moving spaces, drawing, talking in big and small groups, writing. Some of my kiddos who would have been disengaged quite possibly the entire time were engaged in at least two or more parts of this lesson.”
“I love how the data was more interactive and chunked into smaller pieces. I also like how there was a way to bring all the knowledge and wondering back to come up with a conclusion to the problem.”
“Students really enjoyed the hands-on activity. They were very interested to learn about the different pollutants that they’ve never heard of. It also developed their curiosity about air quality and pollution. It was an eye-opener for some that they are able to see what is mostly ‘unseen’ by everyone.”
“Students really wanted to share their food traditions and look into how climate change might affect their food traditions.”
“This lesson brought in cultural stories from the original people who inhabited California. This is a perspective that is not often taught in science. I think that the kids liked having science be a little less facts and figures and more story.”
“I am so amazed and impressed by the depth of resources that you embedded in the teacher guide. This is really well put together.”
“They’ve never thought about stuff like this before, and now they’re sharing it. One girl said this was the only class that she went home and talked to her parents about.”
“When you’re out in the workforce, you’re trying to solve problems that don’t have a clear, immediate answer. So doing stuff like this helps give students practice.”
“Every lesson was so thoroughly designed, the case study design book was beautifully organized, and it helped to give my class a real-life understanding of how college/graduate-level academic research works. Being able to connect their research back to environmental issues they actually experience was simply icing on the cake. Well done!”
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