Objectives
*Teach students about how long their fruits and vegetables last for safe consumption
*Allow students to practice asking scientific questions - forming questions and hypotheses
Objectives
-Demonstrate to students the enormous amount of produce that is wasted daily because they do not fit the aesthetic criteria of producers, retailers, and consumers.
-Show students that fruits and vegetables that do not look “perfect” taste the same as ones you find in the store.
Growers, packing centers, and retailers rely on one another to prevent contamination and keep consumers safe. Four animations illustrate how contamination can spread from field to table and suggest ways to avoid this. Applicable to various tree and ground fruits including cantaloupe, cucumbers, and strawberries, the animations follow the lifespan of an imaginary "purple fruit," highlighting danger points at each stage of the process and suggesting best practices for keeping produce free from contamination. Although the animations are brief, they include "Pause Points" (recommended spots to pause the video) where a presenter can discuss, distribute additional materials or reinforce learning during a training.
This unit includes four lessons and two student working days that culminate in students designing an interactive audio and visual display using emaze. The purpose of this visual display is to document their journey throughout the process of becoming familiar with the traceability (and sometimes lack thereof) of beef, produce, and seafood regulations. With their visual displays, they will be able to educate their family, peers, and the public about food consumption choices and provide background knowledge about its origins.
Using inquiry-based reading and reading apprenticeship strategies, students will explore an anchor text as well as two supplemental texts which they will use to develop their own essential and supporting questions to guide their research. AP Environmental students will explore a variety of texts and resources to increase their knowledge and awareness of where our food (seafood, beef, and produce) in the United States originally is located, how it was obtained, and the laws that govern the process behind the scenes.