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The Garden Lesson Plan

Food and Carbon

Elementary, Middle

Description

The Garden Lesson Plan focusses on the essential question of "Does food grown locally help reduce your carbon footprint?". Through various hands-on, engaging activities the students work to discover how to offset the carbon created by the transportation of food to supermarkets.

The lesson begins by having the students think about their favorite foods and where they come from. The students will do a Life Cycle Assessment by completing a diagram of the production, transportation and consumption cycle of a tomato. They will then watch a video of an industrial tomato and add additional details to their life cycle diagram. Each group will then present and explain their representation followed by a class discussion.

The next part of the lesson begins with the students comparing their local garden to a commercial garden. They will watch a video description of a local tomato. Next they create a Venn diagram comparing their school garden to a commercial farm. Afterwards, they will review case studies of commercial tomato farms from around the world add informtion to their Venn diagrams or life cycle diagrams.

The students are tasked with completing the harvest of the school garden and compiling data on the amount of food collected. The students will prepare a simple meal with the harvested items. Afterwards, the students calculate the carbon offset of the garden items following the lesson plan procedure.

Finally, the students will reflect on their learning by discussing vocabulary terms and sharing their experiences and thoughts. An evaluation sheet is completed as a final step.

General Assessment

What skills does this resource explicitly teach?

This resource explicitly teaches the students how to perform a grocery store audit in order to calculate the carbon offset from growing their own food.  

Strengths

  • engaging activities for all learning styles
  • practical experiences outside of the classroom
  • a good quantity of background information for the teacher
  • extension activities included
  • all external links are active

Weaknesses

  • no suggestions for students who may experience difficulty with the material
  • lesson activities are heavily dependent on a school garden; accomodations can be made with teacher creativity

Recommendation of how and where to use it

The Garden Lesson Plan is a resource that is best suited for the middle school Science classroom. It will help to achieve outcomes related to climate change, sustainability and food production.

Relevant Curriculum Units

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        • Plants for Food and Fibre
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Themes Addressed

Air, Atmosphere & Climate (1)

  • Climate Change

Citizenship (2)

  • Ecological Footprint
  • Sustainable Consumption

Food & Agriculture (5)

  • Conventional Farming
  • Food Security
  • Local Food
  • Organic Farming
  • Subsistence Farming

Sustainability Education Principles

Principle Rating Explanation
Consideration of Alternative Perspectives Very Good

The students will actively debate the pros and cons of both localized gardening and large-scale commercial farming. The resource asks students to explore “both sides of the story” and investigate why global carbon reduction remains an ongoing challenge even when solutions seem apparent.

Consideration of Alternative Perspectives:
  • Satisfactory: absence of bias towards any one point of view
  • Good: students consider different points of view regarding issues, problems discussed
  • Very good: based on the consideration of different views, students form opinions and  take an informed position
Multiple Dimensions of Problems & Solutions Very Good

The resource effectively brings together the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of food systems, moving beyond a simple scientific exploration to look at the holistic impact of agriculture. Although the primary lens through which the issue is explored is the environmental impact and climate change, the economic issue is addressed via the students synthesizing their findings to create a list of the economic values that gardens bring to a local community. The addition of having the students share a meal together fosters a sense of community and thus addresses the social dimensions as well. This allows the students to explore the issue of climate change as an interconnected issue.

Multiple Dimensions of Problems & Solutions:

Effectively addresses the environmental, economic and social dimensions of the issue(s) being explored.

  • Satisfactory: resource supports the examination of  these dimensions
  • Good:  resource explicitly examines the interplay of these dimensions
  • Very Good:  a systems-thinking approach is encouraged to examine these three dimensions
Respects Complexity Very Good

The resource is designed to move students past a basic "local is always perfect" mindset and plunge them into the active scientific research and debate surrounding agricultural life-cycle assessments.

Respects Complexity:

The complexity of the problems/issues being discussed is respected.

Acting on Learning Good

The students complete a garden harvest and calculate the carbon dioxide off-set of their produce. This allows the students to see the practical and real-world side of growing and consuming local food and compare it to food that is transported great distance to their local grocery store.

Acting on Learning:

Learning moves from understanding  issues  to working towards positive change — in personal lifestyle, in school, in the community,  or for the planet

  • Satisfactory: action opportunities are included as extensions 
  • Good: action opportunities are core components of the resource
  • Very Good: action opportunities for students are well supported and intended to result in observable, positive change
Values Education Good

The students are given opportunities to express their opinions and points of view regarding the issue through hands-on activities and class discussions.

Values Education:

Students are explicitly provided with opportunities to identify, clarify and express their own beliefs/values.

Empathy & Respect for Humans Poor/Not considered

This is not a focus of this resource.

Empathy & Respect for Humans: Empathy and respect are fostered for diverse groups of humans (including different genders, ethnic groups, sexual preferences, etc.).
Personal Affinity with Earth Very Good

The resource promotes stewardship and a concern for the Earth via the activities and discussions that focus on climate change, ecological footprint and growing and consuming local food. The harvesting of the garden and the preparation and consumption of a class meal aid in bringing their learning to life in a practical manner.

Personal Affinity with Earth:

Encourages a personal affinity with -the natural world.  

  • Satisfactory: connection is made to the natural world
  • Good: fosters appreciation/concern for the natural world
  • Very Good: fosters stewardship though practical and respectful experiences out-of-doors 
Locally-Focused Learning Very Good

The entire resource has its focus on the students' community and the learning that takes place is centered around local food and how much better it is for the environment.

Locally-Focused Learning:

Includes learning experiences that take advantage of issues/elements within the local community. 

  • Satisfactory: learning is made relevant to the lives of the learners
  • Good: learning is made relevant and has a local focus
  • Very Good: learning is made relevant, local and takes place ‘outside’ , in the community 
Past, Present & Future Satisfactory

Certainly discussions around climate change center on the present and the future. The past is not really addressed in this resource.

Past, Present & Future: Promotes an understanding of the past, a sense of the present, and a positive vision for the future.

Pedagogical Approaches

Principle Rating Explanation
Open-Ended Instruction Very Good

The resource provides structure and guidelines for the activities all the while framing the relationship between food systems and the environment as a good space for inquiry.

The Engage and Explore sections contain activities that allow the students to create a life-cycle diagram and then question and debate their creations. The resource poses subjective questions that rely on critical thinking.

Open-Ended Instruction :

Lessons are structured so that multiple/complex answers are possible; students are not steered toward one 'right' answer.

Integrated Learning Satisfactory
  • Science
  • Numeracy
Integrated Learning:

Learning brings together content and skills  from more than one  subject area

  • Satisfactory: content from a number of different  subject areas is readily identifiable
  • Good:  resource is appropriate for use in more than one subject area
  • Very Good:  the lines between subjects are blurred 
Inquiry Learning Good

In this resource the students take on a role as active investigators searching for an answer to the question, "Does eating food grown locally reduce your carbon footprint?". They create a life cycle assessment to map a tomato's growth. They watch videos to gather information to adjust their diagrams. They also manage a garden and complete a supermarket audit in order to obtain evidence to support their arguments.

Inquiry Learning:

Learning is directed by questions, problems, or challenges that students work to address.   

  • Satisfactory: Students are provided with questions/problems to solve and some direction on how to arrive at solutions.
  • Good: students, assisted by the teacher clarify the question(s) to ask and the process to follow to arrive at solutions.  Sometimes referred to as Guided Inquiry
  • Very Good:  students generate the questions and assume much of the responsibility for how to solve them.  . Sometimes referred to as self-directed learning.

 

Differentiated Instruction Good

This resource contains activities that address a wide variety of learning styles. The activities are also engaging and allow for a greater amount of success for all learners. There are no suggestions for learners who may struggle with the material.

Differentiated Instruction:

Activities address a range of student learning styles, abilities and readiness.

  • Satisfactory:  includes a variety of instructional approaches
  • Good: addresses  the needs of visual, auditory &  kinesthetic learners
  • Very Good: also includes strategies for learners with difficulties
Experiential Learning Very Good

The activities are authentic and engaging. They provide hands-on experience with harvesting a garden, preparing a shared meal and gathering data from a supermarket audit.

Experiential Learning:

Authentic learning experiences are provided

  • Satisfactory: learning takes place through ‘hands-on’ experience or simulation
  • Good: learning involves direct experience in a ‘real world context’
  • Very good: learning involves ‘real world experiences’ taking place’ beyond the school walls.
Cooperative Learning Satisfactory

The students work in groups for the majority of the activities but cooperative learning skills are not explicitly taught.

Cooperative Learning:

Group and cooperative learning strategies are a priority.

  • Satisfactory:  students work in groups
  • Good: cooperative learning skills are explicitly taught and practiced
  • Very Good: cooperative learning skills are explicitly taught, practiced and assessed
Assessment & Evaluation Good

The resource provides a handout "Food and Carbon Evaluation" for assessment with a scoring key. 

Assessment & Evaluation: Tools are provided that help students and teachers to capture formative and summative information about students' learning and performance. These tools may include reflection questions, checklists, rubrics, etc.
Peer Teaching Satisfactory
Peer Teaching:

Provides opportunities for students to actively present their knowledge and skills to peers and/or act as teachers and mentors.

  • Satisfactory: incidental teaching that arises from cooperative learning, presentations, etc.
  • Good or Very Good: an opportunity is intentionally created to empower students to teach other students/community members. The audience is somehow reliant on the students' teaching (students are not simply ‘presenting')
Case Studies Good

The use of videos to present case studies is very effective. 

Case Studies:

Relevant case studies are included.  Case studies are thorough descriptions of real events from real situations that students use to explore  concepts in an authentic context.

Locus of Control Good

The students have a good degree of choice in the resource. They have creative freedom in the illustration of their life cycle of a tomato. They also choose their own items for their supermarket audit.

Locus of Control: Meaningful opportunities are provided for students to choose elements of program content, the medium in which they wish to work, and/or to go deeper into a chosen issue.

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