Driving Question
(Teacher Guided, Student Constructed)
How can we design and implement a simple and productive garden that will provide fresh, healthy food?
Public Products
Students will develop landscaping designs to address issues of food insecurity, low fruit and vegetable consumption, and limited growing space.
Connections
Foundations
Milestones
Milestone 1 (Day 1): Entry Event
Situation
In the United States, youth are not meeting the fruit and vegetable intake recommendation. You might not have noticed that this is a problem in our school. One of the issues is the lack of access to fresh food. Lack of access to fresh food could be due to lack of money or due to living in a food desert. A food desert is where grocery stores are further away than 1 mile from where they live. To overcome these challenges, there are many people who are interested in growing their own produce but lack the knowledge and resources to do so. Our class has been tasked with designing and implementing a productive garden at our school that will provide fresh, healthy food for students, staff, and the local community. This project will help address food insecurity, promote healthy eating habits, and teach valuable gardening skills.
Key Student Questions
- What health benefits do fruits and vegetables provide?
Formative Assessments
- MyPlate Recommendations Worksheet
- Eating Fruits and Vegetables Survey
Materials
Instructional Procedures
- Play Fruits and Vegetables Scattergories:
- Using fruits as the first category, give students one minute to write down as many fruits as they can think of.
- Start the timer and instruct, “Go.”
- When the timer beeps, say, “Pencils down.”
- Choose one student to read their list. The rest of the group raises their hand if they listed the same fruit, and everyone who has it marks an X next to the word. Continue until all lists are read.
- Each person counts the words without an X.
- Repeat with vegetables as the category.
- Each person adds points from both categories to determine the highest unique score.
- Compile a class list of all brainstormed fruits and vegetables.
- Provide each student with the MyPlate Recommendations Worksheet. Have them use MyPlate.gov to generate their personal plan and record recommendations.
- Discuss serving sizes and where to find them on a Nutrition Facts Label. Use Food Models or Food Replicas to explore serving sizes of different foods.
- Have students complete the Food Frequency Questionnaire to determine if they typically meet recommendations for fruit and vegetable intake.
- Brainstorm reasons why people might not meet fruit and vegetable intake recommendations. Record responses on the board.
- Have students consult the MyPlate Fruit Table and MyPlate Vegetable Table. Have them list fruits and vegetables they like on their MyPlate Recommendations Worksheet.
- Present the Situation to students.
- Guide the class in constructing a driving question such as: “How can we design and implement a simplified, productive garden that will provide fresh, healthy food?”
- Explain that students will develop landscaping designs to address food insecurity, low fruit and vegetable consumption, and limited growing space.
- Distribute the Eating Fruits and Vegetables Survey. Have each student gather 10 responses (5 adult, 5 youth) about fruit and vegetable intake in the community and return results the next day.
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