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

Introduction to Food Sovereignty

Climate Change and Food Production

Mesopotamian Food and Agriculture


Global Gardens


A Brief History of the Potato

Foraging

Field Trips

Gleaning @ Morning Glory Farm, Whippoorwhill Farm, or other island farms

Lessons

Introduction to Food Sovereignty

What the Island Eats

Climate Change and Food Production

Global Gardens


A Brief History of the Potato

Lessons

Climate Change and Food Production

Global Gardens


A Brief History of the Potato

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-ESS3-3

Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment

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-ESS3-5

Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperaturesover the past century

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

Represent and analyze quantitative relationships between dependent and independent variables

6.T2.7

Explain the ways in which complex societies interact and spread from one region to another (e.g., by trade, cultural or linguistic exchanges, migration, religious conversion, conquest, or colonization). 

6.T5.C

Research and report on one of the major ancient societies that existed in Central America
(Maya, Teotihuacán, and other civilizations such as the Olmec, Toltec, and Zapotec), or one of the major pre-Columbian Andean civilizations (Chavín, Moche, Nazca), their locations, and their cultural characteristics. 

6.T2.3

Explain that the term Paleolithic Era refers to the period of earliest human history, beginning c. 2.6 million years ago to c. 11,700 years ago, characterized by the first use of stone tools, fire, hunting and gathering weapons, and, about 50,000 years ago, by cave painting, sculpture, tools, and artifacts using diverse materials such as bone, shell, stone, mineral pigments, and wood.

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

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

Seeds

Introduction to Food Sovereignty

Global Gardens


Nutrition/Cooking

What the Island Eats

Mesopotamian Food and Agriculture


Global Gardens


Food Systems

What the World Eats

Introduction to Food Sovereignty

What the Island Eats

Climate Change and Food Production

Mesopotamian Food and Agriculture


Global Gardens


A Brief History of the Potato

Foraging

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