Module 3: We Love Our Food
We Love
Our Food
CONNECT
Objective: to comprehend that the insects in the land, water, and air help us grow the food we eat; that insects are important to biodiversity and life on Earth
Vocabulary: insect
Reading: Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth
Science Activity: Count Our Soil Friends
Earth Friends Lesson
Module 3: Lesson 4
Begin Lesson
move: 5 minutes
Farm Fish Factory
This will be a repeat activity at the beginning of each lesson in Module 3 to help them build an understanding of the different places where we get what we eat.
Ask each child to choose a food they want to give us.
What food do you you have for us today?
Once a child has chosen a food, you can continue…
I wonder if you will need to grow a plant, raise an animal, catch a creature, or make it in a factory to get your food. Will you be a plant farmer? An animal farmer? A fisherman? Or work in a factory?
As the children choose how to get their food*, you have the option to continuing exploring the foods or you can create 4 groups: animal farmers, plant farmers, humans who fish, and humans who make food in a factory. Once every child has a group,, talk about where the foods from different groups come from.
We will get strawberries, potatoes, and grapes from our plant farmers.
Our animal farmers will raise chickens, pigs, and goats for us to eat.
This factory makes cake pops, Doritos, and candy.
I will fish for shrimp.
*Depending on the age of the children, you can prompt them with a food. "Who wants to raise cows? Grow apples? Make us lollipops? Catch fish?"Are you going to grow it, raise it, catch it, or make it in a factory?
Curious Question
What is an insect? I wonder what insects do.
Main Lesson
Insects help plants grow. Our Soil Friends help plants grow from underground. These are the insects and creatures we find in the soil that love to eat food scraps, plants, paper, and cardboard. They are decomposers and make healthy soil. Our Flying Friends help plants grow from the air and love to eat leaves, flowers, and nectar. They are pollinators, and they help plants reproduce and make new plants.
sit & learn: 5 minutes
Count Our Soil Friends
This is a chance for your classroom to experience live soil—and possibly count some creatures too!
Materials Needed: Shallow, wide container with a lid; live soil
Preparation: Fill a shallow, wide container with live soil made from compost or gathered from the forest floor. (This can be from your worm bin at school or from a more mature compost if you've just started the worms.)
Place the container in the middle of a circle or on a table and invite the children to take turns observing the soil. They can touch it with one finger (no handfuls) and move it around to look for Soil Friends.
How many Soil Friends can you find crawling around in the soil. Let's count!
Let the children describe them any way they want to but help with counting. Have the classroom collectively count the number of Soil Friends (insects) they can find. Don't worry about the names or how big or small.
What do they look like? Do you see 3 or 6 or 12?
Bonus: As children count what they find, there is an opportunity for older children to record results and interpret data using the following methods:
tally marks to show number of different soil friends
worm: II
roly-poly: IIII IIII I
bar graphs to show categorization of different soil friends
Put a lid on the container and place it in a common area, science area, or discovery center in the classroom for the next day. Once everyone has had a chance to look and count, you can take the soil outside or put it in the garden outside.
Closing Sentiment
We need insects-both Soil Friends (decomposers) and Flying Friends (pollinators)-for plants. Insects that decompose help plants grow from underground. Insects that fly help plants grow from above ground. All plants need insects to live, and next week we will learn why everyone needs plants to live.
move & discover: 8 minutes
place
based
You can draw attention to foods that are native to your area. What do the locals fish, farm, raise? Do you have any food factories in town?
End Lesson
Teachers in the Classroom
Teacher Activity
Apple Core Experiment
Materials Needed: 2 apple cores; 1 glass jar filled with soil from the sample
Preparation: Place one in the worm bin and the other in a jar filled with soil.
Show the 2 apples to the children. Over a few days, watch which apple core decomposes faster. Ask the children what they are observing. What is happening to the apple cores? Do you see anything that looks different?
Throughout the Week
Discuss: insects during winter. Where do the insects go when it's cold outside?
Explore: After a snack or lunch, take anything that remains and have the children sort the food waste into: compost, recycling, landfill, or reuse. If there is a recycling bin, make sure the recycling pile goes there. If there is a compost, make sure the compost pile is dumped in. If there is garbage, make sure it gets put in the garbage can. If things can be reused, make a pile of what to wash up for next time. See what pile is the biggest. What pile is the smallest?
*This is not about reducing waste. The objective here is for the children to learn where their food waste goes.
Create: Have the children draw pictures of their Soil Friends decomposing waste.
Reading: Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth
Vocabulary: farm, soil, food waste, insect
Good Choices
I can stop and think before I squish a bug. Bugs are insects.
Insects are our Earth Friends.I can work together with my Earth Friends to find food waste our worms can eat.
I can help keep the land, water, and air clean, so insects have a place to live.
Vocabulary:
farm: Humans grow plants for food or raise animals for food on a piece of land called a farm.
soil: The top layer of the land on Earth where plants grow is called soil. Healthy soil grows healthy plants.
insect: Insects are our Earth Friends like Soil Friends that help plants grow from underground (decomposers) and Flying Friends (pollinators) that help plants grow above ground.
Families at Home
Discover: We talked about insects that are pollinators that help the plants grow from the air. There will not be many pollinators out at this time of year but talk about what Flying Friends you will start to see when it gets warmer and the plants are back.
Explore: We discovered the insects that live in the soil with our worms. You can go outside with your child and look for bugs in the soil too. Take a handful of soil from your yard, garden bed, or out in nature and see what you find. Or if you have a home compost (or a neighbor or friend does), take some of the soil and look to see what you find.
*It may be cold outside, but if you can dig into the ground, there may be something to see.
Learn: At school the children may have a worm composting bin (vermicomposting). Ask your child what the worms eat and how they are helping the garden grow. Anyone can have vermicompost, even in a small space. It's a great way to reduce food waste and connect with nature. Check out Subpod.
Check In: How are your seeds growing?