Curriculum Toolkit
Over the years, we have honed in on priority curricular units for every grade level, preschool through 12th grade, that build on each other and provide a meaningful food education for the students we work with.
This Toolkit is the compilation of these units, along with their related teaching standards, activities, and assessment tools. We are constantly adding to this site, so please check in again soon for updates.
We designed this curriculum framework to help our students grasp the following key concepts by the time they graduate from high school:
Feel confident in making healthy food choices
Appreciate the farming profession
Know that everyone can grow food
Understand the connection between healthy soil, healthy plants, and healthy people
Recognize the difference between the industrial and local food systems
6th Grade: Global Foodways
In sixth grade,
students explore global food cultures. Guided by the book, What the World Eats, students investigate their own food culture, and share stories with their classmates. In the spring, they design and plant their own "global garden", recognizing the importance of diversity in all systems.
Connections to IGS Learning Goals:
Appreciate the farming profession
Know that everyone can grow food
Understand the connection between healthy soil, healthy plants and healthy people
Recognize the difference between the industrial and local food systems
Feel confident in making healthy eating choices
Essential Questions:
Where does food come from?
What is food culture?
How has food culture changed throughout history?
How does food build community?
Lessons
What the World Eats
- World Food Day
Introduction to Food Sovereignty
Global Gardens
- Grains Around the World
- Global Food Systems
Field Trips
Gleaning @ Morning Glory Farm, Whippoorwhill Farm, or other island farms
Lessons
Food Sovereignty
- Seedfolks
Global Gardens
- Grains Around the World
- Global Food Systems
What the Island Eats
Lessons
Global Gardens
- Research - Burt Wolf
- Design
MS-ETS1-1
Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution. Include potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.
- Global Garden Design
MS-ETS1-5 (MA)
Create visual representations of solutions to a design problem. Accurately interpret and apply scale and proportion to visual representations.
- Global Garden Design
MS-ETS1-6 (MA)
Communicate a design solution to an intended user, including design features and limitations of the solution.
- Global Garden Design
MS-ETS2-2 (MA)
Given a design task, select appropriate materials based on specific properties needed in the construction of a solution.
- Global Garden Design
MS-ETS2-3 (MA)
Choose and safely use appropriate measuring tools, hand tools, fasteners and common power tools used to construct a prototype.
- Global Garden Design/Compost Construction
MS-ESS3-5
Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperaturesover the past century
- Climate Change and Food Production
MS-ESS3-4
Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth's systems.
- Global Food Systems
MS-ESS3-3
Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment
- Global Food Systems
- Compost Challenge
Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving area, surface area, and volume
- Global Garden Design
Understand ratio concepts and use ratio reasoning to solve problems
- What the World Eats
- What the Island Eats
Represent and analyze quantitative relationships between dependent and independent variables
Determine a theme or central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct form personal opinions or judgments
Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences
- What the Island Eats
- What the World Eats
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions with diverse partners on grade 6 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly
- What the World Eats
- What the Island Eats
Soil
MS-ESS3-3
Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment
- Global Food Systems
- Compost Challenge
Food Systems
What the World Eats
- World Food Day
Introduction to Food Sovereignty
Global Gardens
- Research - Burt Wolf
- Design
MS-ESS3-5
Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperaturesover the past century
- Climate Change and Food Production
MS-ESS3-4
Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth's systems.
- Global Food Systems
MS-ESS3-3
Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment
- Global Food Systems
- Compost Challenge
Global Gardens
- Grains Around the World
- Global Food Systems
What the Island Eats
6th Grade Book List
Garden Literature
- Seedfolks, by Paul Fleischman
Global Gardening
- The Lotus Seed, by Sherry Garland
- Market! By Ted Lewin
- Beatrice’s Goat, by Page McBrier
- Miss Bridie Chose a Shovel, by Leslie Connor
- What the World Eats, by Faith D’Aluisio and Peter Menzel
Geography of Food
- How Did That Get into My Lunchbox? By Chris Butterworth
- Two Old Potatoes and Me, by John Coy
- Burt Wolf Series
- Food for Thought, by Ken Robbins
Grains around the World
- Cycle of Rice, Cycle of Life: A Story of Sustainable Farming, by Jan Reynolds
- The Life of Rice: From Seedling to Supper, by Richard Sobol