Foods You Choose and the People Who Lose

Lesson 2 Overview

The purpose of this lesson is to teach students that people’s individual food choices affect others’ ability to survive and thrive. Students will utilize photographs, videos, books, and article excerpts at various stations in the classroom to understand that many migrant workers are treated inhumanely on farms. Upon completion, students will write letter, as a migrant worker, to a family member back home regarding their working conditions, pay, morale, and feelings about their job and situation. If time allows, students can also play the part of a grocery store owner, farm owner, or migrant worker and act various scenarios out.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

Define human rights.
Describe how human rights are related to our food system.
Explain how the movement of goods, people and ideas impact the community.
Write about the effect purchasing items can have on other human beings.

Conceptual Understanding

Students will understand that:

Consumer choices can have positive and negative effects on people, animals, and the planet.

Standards

Social Studies:

3.G.1.4 Explain how the movement of goods, people and ideas impact the community

4.G.1.3 Exemplify the interactions of various peoples, places, and cultures in terms of adaptation and modification of environment.

5.G.1 Understand how human activity has and continues to shape the United States

3.C.1.1 Compare languages, foods and traditions of various groups living in local and regional communities.

4.C.1 Understand the impact of various cultural groups in North Carolina

3.C&G.2.1 Exemplify how citizens contribute politically, socially, and economically to their community

5.C&G.2 Analyze life in a democratic republic through the rights and responsibilities of citizens

5.E.2 Understand that personal choices result in benefits or consequences

Guiding Questions

What are human rights? Who protects them?
What do people need to survive and thrive/be healthy/happy?
How are human rights connected to our food system?
How do individuals influence others’ rights?
Is it more important to have access to the foods I want at my grocery store than to make sure that farm workers are being treated fairly?

Assessment

Using a graphic organizer for ideas, students will assume the identity of a migrant worker working on one of these farms. They will write a letter home to family members describing working conditions. They should focus on things like how it feels? What is their daily schedule? What do meals look like? Where are living conditions like? How are workers treated? Paid?

Differentiation and Accommodation

Children who may have difficulty reading or with large amounts of text, could visit only the stations with picture or videos.
Students could draw a picture to a family member rather than write a letter.
Students could be required to write a letter and draw a picture if they need an additional challenge.
Students could be placed with a buddy to help them go through the stations and write the letter

Vocabulary

Human Rights - Rights belonging fundamentally to all persons
Injustice - Violation of the rights of another
Migrant Worker - A person who moves regularly in order to find work, especially farming work
Culture - The customary beliefs and traits of a particular group
Fair Trade -Producing and/or marketing products in a way that protects worker's rights
Poverty - Lack of money or possessions
Food System - The system of processing food from planting and growing, to picking and production, to delivery to the market, to the table
Sustainable - A method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged

Introduction

In our previous lesson we learned that consumer choices can have a positive or negative impact on people, animals, and the environment. Today we will be expanding on that lesson and learning more about how people are affected by our choices as consumers.

Introduce the Migrant workers from the 1930's Youtube video. Tell the children they will be watching a short video and they should pay attention to the facial expressions of the people, what the farms look like, what the buildings look like, what emotions they feel. Play the video for the students.

2. Four corners activity -- Read this statement to the children: It is more important to have access to the foods I want at my grocery store than to make sure that farm workers are being treated fairly.

Each corner of the room is a category (Strongly Agree, Somewhat Agree, Somewhat Disagree, Strongly Disagree). Kids will go to a corner of the room that matches their belief.
Have kids discuss in their groups why they thought this way and present to class

Instruction and Guided Practice

Guiding Questions-- discuss these with the class
- What are human rights? Who protects them?
- What do people need to survive, thrive, and be happy and healthy?
- How are human rights connected to our food system?
- How do individuals influence others' rights?

2. Read the book entitled From Farm to Table

3. Set up five different stations for students to explore in small groups. Hand out graphic organizers (copies attached) for them to fill out as they make their way around to each station. This will help them with the activity at the end of the lesson.

Dorothea Lange and the migrant workers during the Great Depression era (Shows this issue spans time) -- lay out Dorothea Lange kid’s book and several of her photos of the migrant workers.
Migrant workers of today in Florida -- use Food Chain$ documentary -- will need a laptop or ipad to play short segment of video
North Carolina Tobacco workers - use excerpts of articles (Shows this issue is of local importance)
Farm workers from the Ivory Coast and the opportunities they have -- use video showing them trying chocolate for the first time -- will need a laptop or ipad to show video clip (shows global importance)
South Korea migrant workers -- use articles and facts from amnesty international study -- "South Korean migrant workers would be better off if they were in prison" -- use excerpts from article and Amnesty International study (global importance)

4. Brain Break - Allow students to get up and take a mental break for a few moments. Play the below Youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b-2wEkhOnk

5. Assessment

Share example of letter home from a migrant worker during the Great Depression (letter example attached).
Instruct Students to do the following:
- Using your graphic organizer for ideas, please consider this next activity from the perspective of a migrant worker on a farm. Write a letter home or draw a picture to your family describing your working conditions. Focus on how you feel, what do you do during a day, what time do you get up in the morning and get home? What do your meals look like? Where are you living during farming season? how much are you paid, what do you wish would happen?

6. Come back together as a group, have the children who want to share their migrant worker letters read them to the class.

Closure and Summary

Play the “Buy Fair, Be Fair!” Youtube video and remind the kids that even they have the power to make a difference in the lives of migrant workers. https://youtu.be/kGoMUIpLENk
Have students talk to a shoulder buddy and discuss what they learned and how they can personally make a difference.
Reinforce to students that given all we have studied in this lesson, they now have a more in depth understanding of how making a choice to purchase certain products can have a significant impact on the ability of other individuals so survive and thrive.