Cecelia Westman

Mapping Food Availability

Middle/High School Standards-Based Lesson Plan

Teacher:_Cecelia Westman_____________ Date:__06/30/16_________________________

Period:____ _______________________ Class:__Social Studies____ ________________

Mapping Food availabilit
Standards addressed:
Alaska cultural standards B, C,
Purpose/Objectives/Outcomes:
Students will examine the availability of food in their local areas from either grocery stores, subsistence living, gardening, farmers markets or any combination. Students will also look at what traditional subsistence living may have looked like in the past and assess what is more common place now in regards to daily diet in the US. Students will then in turn look at food distribution across the US and in their own communities to identify food deserts, high availability or sustainable resources that may exist in their communities.

The Student will be able to(The Big Picture):

…examine the difference between being fed and being nourished according to the community or area that you live in.

What will engagement look like during this lesson?

Students will personalize the lesson by learning how to measure how much sugar they may be eating in a day, a week, a month, and a year. available through the Standard American Diet (SAD). Project will include mapping of food sources including grocery stores, gas stations, and subsistence areas (where applicable), and if available-the average monetary costs of food.

Assessment of student outcomes: (How will you assess student learning?)

Being a proponent of open ended learning, students will be graded on their participation in “on the spot” research, discussions, group learning, problem solving, and reflection.

Materials/Resources:

Internet access:

For the sugar exercise:
~2-5lb bags of sugar
~Photo copies of the nutrition labels from various popular food items such as capri sun, top ramen, coke products, beef jerky, hot dogs, white bread, jelly jars, peanut butter, etc. *Be sure to leave the names of the items off so that students are not aware of the food products that they are analyzing. Mark each list of nutrition facts with A,B,C,D,Etc.
~Paper/pencils
~Tablespoon measures
~Sandwich bags
~Sharpies
~Staplers
~Tape
~This equation: 12.5g of sugar equals one Tablespoon

Technology:

Enough Chromebooks or computers for all students to run Chrome Software.

Instructional Strategies, Accommodations, and Student activities:

For the map activity:
Exercise 1: Students will review and discuss food availability and receive an introduction to My Maps by working together as a class to create a map of food distributors in their community. To give the map more meaning, they will also create a key of demographics, listing population numbers, average incomes of the community, and average costs of commonly sought food items such as “bread, milk, and butter.” This information is usually readily available on the web by searching the city’s website or the state’s website. Depending on time availability-a second layer could be added listing restaurants, a third with farmers markets, a fourth with wholesale distributors, etc. Once the map is posted, students can then make the map available for others outside of their class to interact with.
*Teachers, if you are interested in your students expanding upon their knowledge of food availability, consider contacting a teacher from another region and having them do this exercise with their students so that both classrooms can do a comparison of food availabilities in their respective regions. The maps can be interactive by containing photos, videos, stories, and web links.

For the sugar activity:
Exercise 2: While healthy diets and exercise are important to the lives of people all around the world- wealth, poverty, and stress play major roles in health outcomes and disparities. In this exercise, students will measure the amount of sugar that people may be consuming on a daily bases due to the food choices that their families might have to make in order to stay fed. These choices may be leading to full bellies, but not nourished lives.
Share the stack of nutrition facts with the students evenly and ask the students to figure out the amount of sugar in each item per serving and then to multiply it by the amount of servings contained in the package.
Students should then proceed to place the amount of sugar measured in a baggie for each product that they did the calculation for and to staple it to nutrition fact that it belongs to.
Students should then place their actualized sugar equations onto the front board of the room with tape so that all members of the class can see them. Be sure to leave enough room above or below each item so that there is room to label each of the nutrition facts with their product name directly on the board.
Have the students go through and look at each of the sugar/nutritional representations of the products and try to identify what the product label is.
Have them sit down and as you go through each of the products one by one revealing the product after the class has had the chance to guess what it is with their peers.
Ask the class to look up how much sugar people eat in a year on average according to the Standard American Diet (SAD), why people eat that way, and if it is a choice.
Conclude the lesson by asking them what they learned and what they will be taking with them from the class.

“Justice is what love looks like in public.”

The group exercise associated with Beyond Heroes and Holidays text was a very productive and safe way to have a conversation about race and privilege that may have been difficult to structure otherwise. I appreciated the opportunity to have conversations on the topics of how race, class, and culture relate in the classroom. As teachers that are coming into the field from multiple walks and experiences we have to be cognizant of our own presence in the classroom as facilitators of discussions and the sharing of thoughts and experiences. The space and time allotted for these conversations plays a vital role in our ability to keep the conversations civil and on track while keeping the students on task. When we focus on multicultural education, the input from scholars and our peers can allow us to move beyond our own understanding and foster collaborative approaches to social justice.

The portion of the reading assigned to my group was the introduction piece and I really appreciated how well the different aspects of the book were summarized. The section that stood out the most for me was Our Education Philosophy. I really appreciate that the authors stated that “There is no formula for multicultural education from a critical standpoint…” I think that this speaks to the idea that as educators we need to be flexible in how we approach the subject or how multicultural knowledge is implemented. I really appreciate that the authors instead chose to share guidelines to help educators create a framework to guide the creation of lessons. The guidelines ask a series of questions such as:
-Does the lesson draw on the knowledge and experience of the students?
-Does the lesson help reveal the diversity and complexity of the issues and fields it addresses?
-Does the lesson use a variety of instructional methods to stimulate students’ multiple ways of learning and understanding?
-Does the lesson reinforce the idea that students have individual and collective agency and help to develop that agency?
-Does the lesson convey a politics of possibility and hope?

In addition to these questions, the authors also ask two additional questions that allow the focus to further deconstruct race and racism:
-Does the lesson challenge stereotypes and correct misinformation about peoples of color?
-Does the lesson expose the deep historical and institutional roots of racism and its devastating effects on both peoples of color and White people?

If we are able to employ this understanding in the classroom across all subjects then we may have a better chance in seeing a more equitable and empowered society in the generations to come. I think that by this method being modeled and utilized in the classroom, students will learn to ask the right questions and have the language to discuss issues of inequity.

“Justice is what love looks like in public.”-Dr. Cornel West

(image courtesy of twitter.com/cornelwest)

How Vacating a Traditional Diet Can Cause Detriments In Health

Students will look at the relationship between food and health by examining the departure from traditional diets as western culture becomes more of an influence on the lives of the Northern Athabascan People. Students will learn about traditional foods, availability during various seasons, and what may be causing the departure from this diet. Students will also look at the rise of various illnesses since the introduction of western food and distributors making it readily available in remote areas. Within the context of the ibook there will be charts and photos for identification of indigenous foods, videos explaining the problems with sugar and white flour amongst first nations people, and instructions for an interactive activity where students can visually measure the amount of sugar they might be consuming on a daily basis through beverages and snacks. Students will learn how health is tied to the areas that we occupy, the importance of a whole food diet, and also about food sovereignty.

Alaskan Artifacts-Copper wealth

Metal properties can be seen as old technology. Copper has the capability of cleaning bacteria from water, and of determining if water is acidic. Having this type of knowledge at a time before water testing strips could have been detrimental to the health of all the people in a single community. Copper has been used and traded across many continents for centuries. Tlingit Men would carry large copper shields at parties called Tinaa to show their wealth and status. Much of the copper that was used in Tlingit territories came from the Copper River located just north, toward the South/Central area of the state. This particular copper cup and snus box are items that were traded in the 1800’s by the Russians that had laid claim to the area. Other items featured in the exhibit included a copper tea kettle and jewelry.

Elder’s Panel

Today’s panel was very intriguing for me because as elders Selina, Linda, and David, are highly respected specialists in Tlingit culture. Much has changed since the days that they were youth and were subjected to being othered by the standard social norms of the day such as privilege, power, and control. Even though much has changed in such a short time, still many things remain the same. I appreciate how their dialogues offered first hand accounts of what it was like for them as youth and all that they have had to work for since then to preserve their personal identities and cultural identities but to create an avenue for the culture to be revitalized and passed on to the younger generations. Digging deeper into the discussion, I took away a reminder that many people have been working (and fighting) for multiple generations now so that we can see equity in education. As MAT students and future teachers we have a large responsibility not to lose their vision when we step into the classroom for our training period and even once we are professionals at our craft.

Visiting Juneau, where I’m from: A Walking and Driving tour

The Alaskan Capital City of Juneau has a lot of beautiful things to see and fun activities to do. Southeast Alaska is allows for quick access to a lot of different terrain to hike, waterways to explore, wildlife, and recent history that is well documented in our state and city museums. Here are a few locations that are easily reached by foot or by vehicle and that together can be seen in one day. Many of the places and activities available here are best enjoyed only during certain seasons (mostly summer) and require more then a day to fully experience. Following this map can also show you many other sites to see in passing as you explore Alaska’s Capital City.