# Slides 6.4: Food Scarcity and Food Deserts Slide outline for Lesson 6.4. Twelve slides, one day. Slide 2 is read out loud word for word and is not skipped. The last slide carries the counselor's name and room. [Sal: no photos of real neighborhoods, and no photos that could be read as a picture of somebody's family. Diagrams and the map only.] ## Slide 1: Food Scarcity and Food Deserts - Unit 6, Lesson 6.4 - Topic 6.1 Where Food Comes From - Today: one neighborhood on paper, two price lists, twenty dollars Image: a plain line drawing of a street grid with one store icon at the far corner. ## Slide 2: Three rules for today - Nobody is asked about their own household. Not your fridge, not your groceries, not anything - This is not something that happens only somewhere else. About one in eight households in this country has trouble affording enough food in a given year - We are here to solve a problem, not to feel sorry for anybody Notes: Read all three out loud, word for word. Do not paraphrase and do not skip. The lesson only works if the room knows it is safe. ## Slide 3: Do now - The words "food desert" describe some neighborhoods - From the words alone, what do you think it means? - One sentence. There is no wrong guess here Notes: Take four guesses and correct none of them. Most will say "a place with no food." That guess is the opening of the lesson. ## Slide 4: There is plenty of food for sale here - A store on almost every corner - Open late, open early, some open all night - And it is still hard to put a decent dinner on the table - Your job: figure out why Notes: This is the hook. ## Slide 5: Two words - **Food insecurity:** not having reliable access to enough affordable food - **Food desert:** a neighborhood where reaching a full grocery store is hard because of distance, transportation, or both Notes: Students write both in their own words. Watch for "a place with no food" on the handout and fix it now, not later. ## Slide 6: Four things that create one - Distance: how far the nearest full grocery store is - Transportation: whether you can get there and back with groceries - Price: what the nearby stores charge - Selection: what the nearby stores actually stock Image: four icons, a ruler, a bus, a price tag, an empty shelf. ## Slide 7: Maple Park - 4,000 people, twelve blocks - One supermarket, three convenience stores - One bus, once an hour - No sidewalk on Route 9 between Elm and the store Image: the neighborhood map from the handout, projected large, with the scale bar visible. Notes: Made up for class. Say that out loud. ## Slide 8: Measure it - Three homes, six distances - 1 inch equals 0.4 miles. One block is about 0.1 miles - Highlight the walk from Home C to the supermarket - Then: who has the hardest trip, and what would make it easier? Notes: The fix has to be a change to the neighborhood, not to the family. If a student says "they should get a car," that is the discussion, not the answer. ## Slide 9: Twenty dollars, two stores - Build a dinner for a family of four - First at the supermarket, then at the corner store - Both carts have to feed four people - Then: what is the difference, in dollars and in food? Notes: Circulate. Any cart with fresh vegetables from the corner store gets sent back to the price list, not corrected out loud. ## Slide 10: The item that is not on the list at all - No fresh vegetables - No fresh meat - One banana, ninety-nine cents Notes: This is the slide students remember. It is not only that the corner store is expensive. It is that some food is not for sale there at any price. ## Slide 11: Five responses - Food pantry: free groceries, often one day a week - SNAP and WIC: federal programs, run through the state - Community garden: neighbors grow food on a shared plot - Mobile market: a truck that parks in the neighborhood on a schedule - School meals: breakfast and lunch, at no charge in many New York schools Notes: One minute each, factual. What each one is, who runs it, what it does and does not solve. Then: which two would help Maple Park most, and why. ## Slide 12: Exit card, and my door - A food desert is ___ - The thing that would help most is ___ because ___ - If anything today is about your house, my door and the counselor's door are both open, and you do not have to explain Notes: [Sal: put the counselor's name and room number on this slide.] Read the last line out loud. Read the exit cards before you hand anything back.