Food Waste Lesson Plan

Context: This is a three-four day lesson plan for grade 12 students

DAY 1: FOOD DUMPING
Part 1 - video - 2 mins in until 12 mins (10 mins)
The Global Food Waste Scandal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWC_zDdF74s

- Explain that rich countries such as the US and the EU are producing way more food than is
actually needed

- ask students where they think all the excess food goes
- most of the food is wasted - some is dumped on other countries, some is fed to livestock,
some is dumped into food banks, and a huge amount just ends up in the garbage
Part 2 - read Dumping and Donating (10 mins)

- Explain the Good Samaritan Act

- Tell students that one thing that happens with this excess food is that once it passes the
expiry date, rather than going in the garbage it gets passed off into food banks

- ask students what they think of this - make sure they understand that while it may seem like
these companies are being socially responsible, it would be far more responsible to donate to
food banks before the food goes bad - the whole socially responsible thing is just an act

Part 3 - Food dumping (10 mins)

- Explain that a lot of excess food also gets dumped on poorer countries - while this might
sound like a good thing at first, it actually damages the local economy for developing
countries
- explain the bake sale analogy
- read the article
Part 4 - Zero waste blog article (20 mins)

- Ask each student to name one thing that they throw out
- Write list up on the board
- Ask students if they can live without any of these items or find another use for them other
than the garbage. cross items off as they list them and see how close the class can get to
being a zero waste class
Homework Assignment: (assign homework on a Friday to allow students the chance to
observe how they eat on both the weekend and weekdays.)


Food Log
One of the first steps we can take towards becoming a responsible consumer is to be
conscious of what we are eating, and to recognize that each choice we make with our food can
have larger implications than satisfying our bellies and tastebuds. For this assignment, keep a
journal and record three of the meals you eat this weekend, answering the following questions.
You may answer in point form.

1. What did you eat?

2. Where did you purchase the meal? If this was a home cooked meal, where did the groceries
come from?
3. Was your food produced locally, or was it imported from somewhere else?
4. What type of packaging did your food come in? Where did you discard the packaging?
(recycling, garbage, stored for re-use)
5. Who prepared the meal?
6. Were there any leftovers? Did anything get thrown out?
7. What was the purpose of them?

DAY 2
Field trip: Many farms have leftover crops at the end of the year that get thrown out, unless they
are collected by others. For this field trip, the teacher must contact a local farmer and ask if they
have any leftover crops they would like to have cleared away. This could also be an excellent
assignment for students to do at the beginning of the year. Rather than the teacher organize the
field trip, students can work to write a professional letter asking local farmers if would like to
have any of their leftover crops cleared.
* If there are no leftover crops to be cleared, students may also have the opportunity to
contribute to the harvest in some way. If none of these options are available, students can
either help at a soup kitchen, or begin a classroom plot of land at a local community garden.
Day 3
Circle Talk (ten - fifteen minutes to wrap up the lesson)
Begin with a circle talk about yesterdays field trip. What did students learn from this
experience? Did they have fun? Were there any surprises? Disappointments? Is this
something they might like to do again?