Inquiry Lesson Plan Template (with Four Ways of Thinking

connection)
Teacher:
Content & Title:
Grade Level:
Food:
The
Peoples
Gabrielle King
Fifth Grade
Fuel
A Lesson on Food
Sustainablility and how
we can encourage
students to be more
aware of their nutrition.

Standards:
PO4.Developnewinvestigationsandpredictionsbasedonquestionsthatarisefromthefindingsofaninvestigation
PO 3. Conduct simple investigations (e.g., related to forces and motion, Earth processes)
based on student developed questions in life, physical, and Earth and space sciences.

Objectives

Students will be able to demsonstrate their uderstanding of what a food system is by

differentiating between locally grown foods and processed foods that are less healthy. SWBAT
contrast two recipes by looking at prices for home cooked meals and prices of eating fast food.
SWBAT create a cookbook with five easy recipes to provide alternatives for their family as
opposed to eating at a fast food restaurant (final activity, time permitting).

Evidence of Mastery

Formative: Students will demonstrate their understanding of the importance of eating locally by
writing two paragraphs that summarizes what they learned from this experience. This
assignment will be worth 10 points and students will need to address what item of food they
chose to create a recipe from and why, and what they learned about the differences in pricing
between cooking at home and eating at a fast food restaurant. Students should also infer why
eating from home may be healthier and why it may be difficult to sustain a large population with
only locally grown food.
Summative: At the end of this unit, students will write a five paragraph paper about food
systems, local/regionally grown food, and sustaining a growing population for generations to
come. They will be expected to include what they learned from this project in their essay, and
make connections between what they learned and how it will apply to their eating habits in the
future.

Sub-objectives, SWBAT:

SWBAT:
SWBAT:
SWBAT:
SWBAT:

Define the difference between locally and regionally grown foods.

Create a menu for a recipe of their choosing.
Identify prices of items needed to create meal chosen for menu.
Compare those prices to the price of a mean if their family went out to dinner instead.

Lesson Summary and Justification:

Using the Sustainable Table resource, we will use the descriptions given for defining and contrasting the
difference between locally and regionally sourced food. We will also use this source to determine the
definition of a sustainable food source. This lesson will allow students to gain an understanding of the
importance of making food at home as opposed to eating at a fast food restaurant. Creating a cookbook
will engage the students and hopefully encourage their families to explore locally

Background Knowledge:
Students will need to have an understanding of locally/regionally grown food in order to participate in
the discussion we will have before I introduce the lesson. Students will need to know what their family
normally eats in order to contribute to the discussion.

Misconception:
Students may think that because eating fast food may be cheaper, that it is healthier as well. They may
also think that buying ingredients to make a meal at home is unattainable because it is more expensiver
or produce is difficult to come by, so this lesson will hopefully alter their perceptions.

Process Skills:
We will be practicing our observation, communication, classification, and inference skills. We will be
observing what our families normally eat and inquiring the reasons why, ex. convenience, time, money,
etc. We will be classifying what food is considered locally grown versus what food is regionally grown,
and we will be infering why eating at home is healthier and what is needed to sustain a population in
our formative assessment.

Four Ways of Thinking connection:

This lesson will incorporate systems thinking, as we will be addressing the methods by which we acquire
our food. We will discuss the relationships between the producer and the consumer, and what sort of
equipment might be needed to clean our food/ package it, etc. We will watch Birk Baehrs TED Talk to
take a kids perspective on processed food, and watch the YouTube video called Food Systems Thinking
to enhance our understanding.
We will also use futures thinking to infer what measures need to be taken in order to sustain a
population for a long time and what we will need to do in order to prevent food from running out (this
will be a continued discussion from the previous days lesson, regarding the imminence of food).
Safety:
No safety rules are required for the succesful completion of this lesson.

Inquiry Questions:
1. Where does your family perfer to eat? Are you aware of any recipes that your guarians/
parents perfer, and if so, have you helped prepare a mean?
2. Why does your family (or generalize for introduction to topic) perfer to eat at a
restaurant or at home (one more than the other)?
3. What do you think would happen if your family grew in size? How would you be able to
sustain the amount of food you produced to feed all of them? Take this on a larger scale
(population of classroom, school.)

Key vocabulary:

Materials:

1. Locally grown: Food production and

distribution that is geographically localized
(Sustainable Table).

1. Computers
2. Paper
3. Pencils
4. Calculator (to contrast the price of a
home cooked and fast food meal.
5. Recipes for spaghetti and homemade
meatballs, lettuce wraps, chicken and
broccoli.
6. Supplies to make cookbooks
(construction paper, colored pencils).

2. Regionally grown: Food that is typically

produced at a greater distance from where the
food is purchased (Sustainable Table).
3.Food systems: This comprises how the food
is produced (grown or raised) the way the food
is harvested or slaughtered, and the way food
is prepared and distributed for the consumer
(Sustainable Table).

*All materials listed above are necessary

for a class of varying size.

4. Nutrition: The efficiency/ healthiness of

food.
5. Ecomical: Using no more than necessary (in
this case, not spending more than necessary
on fast food).

Engage - In this section you should activate prior knowledge, hook student
attention, pose a question (IQ#1) based on your lesson objective that students
will seek to answer in Explore.
Teacher Will: (hook)
Students Will:
We are going to get in a circle and discuss our
favorite foods! Do you get the ingredients for your
favorite food at the grocery store, or do s your
favorite food come from a restaurant? Where do
you think these foods come from, and how do they
get to your table?

Students will arrange themselvves in a circle so

it is easier to discuss and address their peers.
After I present the questions, students will
answer them.

Best Teaching Practice Strategy/Differentiation/ELL and Teacher Notes

As a teacher, I can write the questions on the board for reference, and use a timer to maintain focus.
Students will also be expected to maintain respecful behavior.

Explore - In this section students should take the lead and actively use materials
to discover information that will help them answer the question posed in
Engage. Teachers may choose to give steps to follow, especially for younger students,
but the goal is for students to discover some or all of the sub-objectives of the lesson.
Teacher Will: (pose IQ #1)
Students Will: (list all steps)
What is a food system? Where does locally grown
food come from, and where does regionally grown

After the guided discussion with the teacher and

classmates about the definitions that we

food come from? We will begin this aspect with a

discussion for the definitions of food systems, and
where our food comes from. This should be a review
from the first day of the unit, but it is important that
students know how to apply what they have learned.
This aspect will be incorporating systems thinking,
and is integral in helping students understand the
method and processes that are required for food to
be obtainable to the students eventually.
For this component, the teacher will assign the
students to find a recipe for a dinner. The student
will write down the ingredients and find the prices
using the internet.

discussed in the days prior, students will be

instructed to find a computer to do the research
aspect of this lesson.
1. Students will choose their favorite food and
find a recipe for it using the internet.
2. They will write down the ingredients and
research the prices. This assignment will be
known as their menu. They will use portion
sizes that match the size of their family (serves
4 for a family of 4).
3. Students will then create a second menu but
with items from a fast food restaurant.
4. They will use the same proportions, and find
the price for about how much it would cost to go
out to eat depending on how many people are in
your family.
5. We will then compare the price it would cost
to make food at home versus eating at a fast
food restaurant.
During this time, we will continue to discuss
whether or not we can find the ingredients to
our favorite foods in stores, and students will be
asked if the food can be found in our community.

Best Teaching Practice Strategy/Differentiation/ELL and Teacher Notes

The environment here will be learner centered, and will challenge students to think critically about what
it means to buy food from a local or regional source. Teachers will guide students to researching a recipe
and will be strongly encouraged to find out if we can find the ingredients at a local grocery store or
market. In order to differentiate this activity, students can work with a teacher to gain ideas. It is
possible that some of the students will have difficulty working on the computer in a timely manner, and
therefore, differentiation can be applied by assigning a specific recipe with prices for ingredients
already included. Also, if there is a time constraint, this activty can be readily made into a full class
guided discussion with the teacher facilitating.

Explain In this section students share what they discovered, teacher connects
student discoveries to correct content terms/explanations, students
articulate/demonstrate a clear and correct understanding of the lesson sub-objectives
by answering the question from Engage before moving on.
Teacher Will:
Students Will:
Teacher will introduce the idiom we are what we
eat and ask students what they think that means.
We will then begin our discussion on the importance
of nutrition. Nutrition will be defined. What do you
think is healthier, cooking at home or eating at a fast
food restaurant? By students demonstrating their
understanding of the differences between
where/what to eat, we will be further embedding
their understanding of the importance of nutrition.

Students will participate in the group discussion

and respond to the questions posed by the
teacher. Students will respond with whether or
not they know what the word nutrition means.
Students will present their findings from their
research and share with the class the differences
between the meals they chose to compare.
Students will also share about where they were
able to find their ingredients (whether or not
they could be viewed at an online grocery store).
If there is time, students can infer and theorize
where they believe the ingredients came from: a
farm, a dairy, a field, etc.

Best Teaching Practice Strategy/Differentiation/ELL and Teacher Notes

It is important to encourage full classroom discussion. The students will be turning in this assignment,
so the participation can be judged that way if a student is uncomfortable speaking up. In this
environment, we need to be respectful of our friends and what they have to say, but it is also important
that we share in order to be more engaged in the discussion. The teacher will accurately guide the
students to the correct idea of what nutrition is for their thorough understanding, this way any residual
confusion is eliminated.

Elaborate In this section students take the basic learning gained from Explore and
clarified in Explain and apply it to a new circumstance or explore a particular aspect of
this learning at a deeper level. Students should be using higher order thinking in this
stage. A common practice in this section is to ask a What If? question. IQ #2

Teacher Will: (pose IQ #2)

Ask the students why they think their family prefers

to eat at a restaurant or at home as opposed to the
contrary. Then, implore the students to use futures
thinking to consider what would happen if there were
more people in their family to feed. What would
happen if your family had 10 people in it? 20? 30?
How would you be able to sustain a nutritious and
delicious diet for all of the members of your family?
This would be an overview from the day before.
How important is what we eat? When we think
about nutriton, what are some ways to help improve
our eating habits?

Students Will:

Student will participate in discussion using their

prior knowledge and understanding of nutrition.
We will discuss how they can improve their diets
and the benefits that would come from eating at
home more often, assuming their family eats out
frequently.

Best Teaching Practice Strategy/Differentiation/ELL and Teacher Notes

This section is another example of discussion, therefore the only thing that needs to be assessed is
student participation. If students are not able to answer the hypothetical situation posed, then the
teacher can facilitate discussion amongst the students. That may help broaden students understanding
for such a specific topic.

Evaluate In this section every student demonstrates mastery of the lesson

objective (though perhaps not mastery of the elaborate content). Because this also
serves as a closing, students should also have a chance to summarize the big
concepts they learned outside of the assessment.
Teacher Will:
Students Will:
For the creative component of this lesson plan,
teachers will help students create a small
cookbook using recipes that are easy and
nutritious. Examples of this can be spaghetti and
meatballs, chicken and broccoli with pasta, or
lettuce wraps. The purpose for this activity is to
engage students and help them create something
that is funtional and that they have the ability to
use with their families or guardians.
Teachers will then assign students to summarize
what they learned and write two paragraphs
comparing and constrasting locally and regionally
sourced food, along with summarizing the other
components of this lesson.

Students will be able to create their own cookbook

and decorate it as they wish. They will be able to
take it home to hopefully use for future reference
and even encourage their family members to try
the recipes.
Student will demonstrate their understanding of
the importance of buying locally by writing two
paragraphs that summarizes what they learned
from this experience, including how creating a
menu, researching the prices for food items, and
discussing the posed questions helped them gain a
deeper understanding of this topic.

Closure:
Alright, so as you can see, the food you eat has positive and negative effects on more than just your
health; by eating homecooked meals, learning about the processes of harvesting and distributing locally
grown food, and supporting local growers, we can help protect our communitys ecomony and create a
healthier lifestyle for ourselves.
The exit ticket will be a summation of what the students learned and they will be able to input it into
their summative assessment at the end of the unit. This lesson is intended to help students understand
the importance of nutrition and how easy it is to adopt a lifestyle that is considerate of the community.