Slide outline for Lesson 6.5. Twenty slides across two days: Day 1 slides 1 to 11, Day 2 slides 12 to 20. Cover the wall paths before slide 20. [Sal: collect the packages for a week before you teach this. Ask students to bring in the worst package they can find; they compete to win that.]
DAY 1
Sustainable Food Methods
- Unit 6, Lesson 6.5, Day 1
- Topic 6.1 Where Food Comes From
- Today: you plant something and you keep it alive until the end of this unit
Teacher notes
Image: a row of paper cups with seedlings on a classroom windowsill.
Do now
- Something is sustainable if you can keep doing it forever without running out
- Name one thing you do that is sustainable
- Name one thing that is not
- They can be small
Teacher notes
Take four pairs of answers.
This is trash from Tuesday
- A scallion root end
- It will be a plant by next week
- You each get one today
Teacher notes
Image: a scallion root end in a clear cup of water with new green growth.
This is the hook. Hold up the real one.
Sustainability, the definition
- The state's own words: define "sustainability" as it applies to resource use
- In plain words: a way of using something you could keep doing without running out or wrecking the place it comes from
Teacher notes
Students write it in their own words.
Crop rotation
- Plant a different crop in the same field each year instead of the same one over and over
- The soil keeps its nutrients
- Pests and diseases that live on one crop lose their host
Teacher notes
Image: a four-square diagram of one field with a different crop each year, arrows in a circle.
Drip irrigation
- Hoses along the rows drip water right at the roots
- Instead of spraying the whole field into the air
- Far less evaporates or runs off
- Same crop, much less water
Teacher notes
Image: a close-up of drip tape beside a row of tomato plants.
Integrated pest management
- Watch for pests and count them
- Use the smallest thing that works: a resistant seed, a helpful insect, a trap, a barrier
- Spray last, not first
- Costs less and keeps beneficial insects alive
Teacher notes
Image: a sticky trap card in a field with a farmer's hand holding a clipboard.
Plant it
- Scoop the mix
- Poke a hole, seed or root end in, cover
- Water once
- Label with your name and today's date
- Then write the care plan: how much, how often, how much light, who waters when you are absent
Teacher notes
Run it as a line. Wash hands after. Assign the watering chart, four students per week, all the way to the end of Unit 6.
Compost sort
- Two piles: goes in, does not go in
- A reason for every card in the "does not" pile
- "It is gross" is not a reason
Teacher notes
Ten cards per group of four. Let them argue about the paper towel and the slimy lettuce.
The compost rule
- Things that used to be a plant break down
- Things that came from an animal, or have oil or grease on them, draw animals and turn sour instead of breaking down
- Plastic never breaks down, and stickers are the number one contaminant in commercial compost
Teacher notes
Reveal the ten answers with the why, not just the answer.
One cucumber, two ways
- Wrapped in plastic: stays fresh about three times as long
- Loose: no plastic, and more of them get thrown out
- Which waste is worse?
- * *
DAY 2
Teacher notes
Image: two cucumbers side by side, one shrink wrapped, one bare.
This sets up Day 2. Hand out the three packages per group and have them circle the one they will redesign. Exit card: "Sustainable means ___. One thing that makes food production more sustainable is ___."
Redesign the Package
- Unit 6, Lesson 6.5, Day 2
- Build it, test it, pitch it
- Then the Food Systems Quiz in the last fifteen minutes
Teacher notes
Image: a single-serve yogurt cup inside a cardboard sleeve inside a shrink-wrapped four-pack.
Do now
- Look at the three changes on the wall from the waste audit
- Which one actually happened?
- Be honest
Teacher notes
Sixty seconds. Honest answers only; no consequence either way.
Four layers to protect one yogurt
- Your job: do it in two
- And prove the yogurt still survives
Teacher notes
Hold up the worst package in the pile. This is the hook.
The design process, the state's own eight steps
- Define the problem
- Set criteria and constraints
- Brainstorm
- Select
- Prototype
- Test, optimize, evaluate
Teacher notes
Same eight words as Unit 4, Lessons 4.11 to 4.15. Say that out loud so students hear the connection.
Your criteria and your constraints
- Criteria: the food still gets protected, and the waste goes down
- Constraints: survives a truck and being stacked three high. Lasts two weeks on a shelf. Still says what is inside, with a Nutrition Facts panel
Teacher notes
The constraints are given, not chosen. Write them on the board and leave them up.
Build it
- Ten minutes
- Paper, tape, cardboard, markers
- One model per group
- Draw the label on it
Teacher notes
Circulate with one question per group: "Drop it. Stack three. Does the food still make it?" A group that removed the structural layer finds out in two seconds.
Justify it
- How many layers did the original have? How many does yours?
- What protects the food now?
- What did you remove, and what was that layer doing?
- What got worse?
Teacher notes
Both criteria have to be answered. "What got worse" is not optional; every design gives something up.
Thirty-second pitches
- One sentence: what we cut
- One sentence: how the food is still protected
- One challenge question from the class
Teacher notes
Five minutes total. Then collect the models and clear the desks.
Food Systems Quiz
- 12 items, 15 minutes
- Supply chain, local and seasonal, waste math, a food desert scenario, sustainable methods, packaging
- You may use your vocabulary card
- Desks clear, wall covered
Teacher notes
Read the directions aloud once. Cover the wall paths before you hand the quizzes out. Collect at the bell. Retakes are allowed once after a review, per the Grading Plan; post the answers at the start of Lesson 6.6.