Activities for Module IV
Apples, Beets, and Zinnias: Sustainable Horticulture
Section A: Fruits and Vegetables
in the Food System
Contents:
Activity 1: What role do
fruits and vegetables play in your diet?
Activity 2: What grows here?
What sells here?
Activity 3: Menus and
Maps—Where does your food come from?
Activity
1: What role do fruits and vegetables play in
your diet?
Purpose: Students will learn
about the contribution fruits and vegetables make
to their diets and to those of others, and how
consumption compares to dietary recommendations.
Students will also begin to explore how fruits
and vegetables move through the food system.
Advance preparation: Have materials
available to make bar graphs. This could be as
simple as a black- or white-board or a print-out
of the bar graph worksheets or as sophisticated
as a computer software program for graphing statistics.
Estimated time: 10 to 30 minutes
Ask each student to make a list of all the fruits
and vegetables she or he has eaten in the last
24 hours.
Discuss the following questions and make class
bar graphs of the responses to the first three
questions:
- Do most students eat an amount that falls
into nutritional guidelines (around 2½
cups of vegetables and 2 cups of fruit per day
for girls and 3½ cups of vegetables and
2½ cups of fruit per day for boys)?
(Fewer than a quarter of Americans eat recommended
quantities of fruits and vegetables)
For more information, see:
5
A Day: Data and Statistics from the Center for
Disease Control and Prevention
My
Pyramid Plan from United States Department of
Agriculture
5
A Day: Tips: Basics from the Center for Disease
Control and Prevention
If you have sufficient computer access, students
can use the USDA
mypyramid to see how dietary recommendations
vary depending on the age, sex, and activity
level of the person.
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Sample
recommendations for vegetable consumption
|
Moderately
active teen girls |
Moderately
active teen boys |
Inactive
adult women |
| Calories |
About
2,000 |
About
2,800 |
About
1,800 |
| Vegetable
Group |
2½
cups per day |
3½
cups per day |
2½
cups per day |
| Fruit
Group |
2
cups per day |
2½
cups per day |
1½
cups per day |
|
*Data Adapted
from USDA
Dietary Guidelines, May 2005 |
Optional extension: How much is a cup?
The old nutritional guidelines talked about
“servings,” but people’s ideas
about serving sizes were often very different
from what USDA or label-makers had in mind.
The new guidelines talk about cups, which still
leaves some questions. Have students measure
how many little carrots it takes to make up
a cup. Then have students grate the cup of carrots.
Do the grated carrots come to more or less than
a cup? How much difference does it make whether
the carrots are loosely or tightly packed? Next,
cook the carrots with a little water (this can
be done in a microwave or on a stove). Mash
them and measure them again. How much volume
do they occupy now?
2. What form do you eat fruit and vegetables in?
Fresh? Frozen? Canned? Dried? Processed some other
way? Raw? Cooked?
3. Where did your fruits and vegetables come
from? In-state? In-region? Continental US? North
or South America? Other continent? Don’t
know?
4. Where did you get your fruits and vegetables? Grocery store? Home garden? Food service? Community garden? Farmers market? CSA? Farm stand or U-pick? Harvested from the wild? Gifts from friends and neighbors? Other sources?
5. Do your fruit and vegetable consumption patterns change seasonally? If so, how?
6. Not all vegetables are the same. The current
nutritional guidelines stress the importance
of dark green vegetables such as broccoli and
kale and orange vegetables such as carrots and
sweet potatoes. What proportion of the vegetables
students ate in the last 24 hours are regular
potatoes? What proportion are dark green or
orange?
7. Why do you think most Americans don’t
eat recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables?
Lack of knowledge? Flavor? Cost? Convenience?
Habit?
See J. F. Guthrie et al. Understanding
Economic and Behavioral Influences on Fruit
and Vegetable Choices, USDA Amber Waves , April 2005.
6. How many students in the class fall into each
of the categories? (Create a simple bar graph
by filling in one box in the appropriate column
in the tables
for each student. Or you can tell your students
to create the graphs on the computer or using
graph paper.) You might show males and females
in different colors to see if there is a gender
difference in fruit and vegetable consumption.)
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Activity
2: What grows here? What sells here?
Purpose: Students will learn
about what fruits and vegetables can grow locally,
how much produce is imported from other states
and countries, and will begin to think about how
produce moves through the food system.
Advance preparation: None for
regular activity. Provide starting point for students
to find farmers market managers for extended activity.
Visit: Wisconsin
Farmers' Market Directory at Savor Wisonsin
Iowa's
Farmers' Market Directory at Iowa Department of
Agriculture and Land Stewardship
National
Directory of Farmers' Markets
Estimated time: Part 1 will
take 10 to 15 minutes. The extended activity will
take 5 minutes in-class instruction and 15 minutes
for reporting and discussion. The time needed
to conduct the interviews will vary.
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Part 1
Have the class make a list on the board or a flip
chart of all the fruits and vegetables students’
families grow for personal consumption in this
state.
Next, have the class list fruits and vegetables
available in local grocery stores that were grown
in-state. If students don’t know whether
the grocery store vegetables were grown
in-state, have students call the produce
managers and find out what (if any) fruits and
vegetables they sell that are grown in-state.
Next, if there is a farmers’ market nearby,
have the class make a list of all the locally
grown produce for sale there. Students can visit
the market in season (September is best time during
the school year) or interview the market manager
to get an idea of the variety of locally grown
fruits and vegetables for sale.
Finally, put up the list of vegetables grown at
one Wisconsin CSA farm (Harmony Valley) in one
year
and ask the class what other fruits and vegetables are grown in-state. Arugula, Asparagus, Basil, Beets, Broccoli, Broccoli
Romanesco, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Cantaloupe,
Carrots (red, orange, and yellow), Cauliflower,
Celeriac, Cilantro, Cucumbers, Currants, Edamame
(green soybeans), Eggplant, Fennel, Green Beans,
Green Garlic, Green Onions, Horseradish, Herbs,
Kohlrabi, Lettuce, Leeks, Parsnips, Peas, Peppers,
Potatoes, Purple Cauliflower, Radishes, Ramps
(Wild leek), Raspberries, Rhubarb, Rutabaga, Salad
Mix, Saute Mix, Spinach, Strawberries, Sunchokes,
Sweet Corn, Sweet Potatoes, Tomatoes, Turnips,
Watercress, Watermelon, Winter Radish (beauty
heart and black Spanish), Winter Squash (acorn,
butternut, delicata, festival, kabocha), Zucchini,
other items grown in-state?
For more information visit the the Harmony Valley CSA
listing and homepage
Ask the class to compare the lists. How are they
different? Why are they different? What consequences
do those differences have?
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Extended activity: the well-traveled
vegetable. Select a few fruits and vegetables
that grow in-state. (Examples might include apples,
potatoes, lettuce, cherries, green beans, etc.)
Ask some students to interview supermarket produce
managers and others to interview farmers market
vendors to find out where these items were grown
and how they have been handled between the farm
and the point of retail sale. (This activity has
most visual impact in June or September when farmers
markets display a bounty. However, during the
off-season students can still interview market
managers and vendors, as well as grocery store
produce managers, about the produce offerings
during the local growing season.)
Students can use the sample
questions to guide their interviews. Each
group of students should report their findings
back to the whole class.
Have students report their findings to the class. Ask students to compare the miles traveled, days from harvest, retail price, quality (appearance, variety, and flavor), and amount of handling (number of steps from field to eater) for each type of produce.
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Activity
3: Menus and Maps—Where does your food come
from?
Purpose: Students will begin
to think about all the steps in the food system
between the farm and their plates. Students will
begin to realize the global nature of the food
system. (Note: this is essentially the same activity
as the Menus and Maps exercise in Module I. If
students have recently done Module I you may prefer
to skip this activity, or you may require more
detailed and documented answers.)
Advance preparation: Assemble
materials: paper plates and blank
maps from Xpeditions Atlas at National Geographic
Estimated time: 20 minutes
- “Set the table” by placing a white
paper plate and a piece of paper (as a placemat)
at each student’s seat.
- Have the students draw all the fruits and
vegetables (and herbs) they have eaten in the
last 24 hours on their plate.
- Then, on their placemat, have the students
“map” where they think the fruits
and vegetables came from. To make things easier
for the students you may have the “placemat”
show a blank map of the US or the world.
For maps, visit:
Xpeditions
Atlas at National Geographic
50 states.com
worldatlas.com
- Students should try to trace each fruit or
vegetable as it moved through the food system
from the farms where food was grown, through
processing and distribution, to where the waste
went. See examples
- Discuss what students found out from this
exercise.
Possible discussion points:
- We get our food from a global market –
much of it comes from very far away.
- We don’t usually know exactly where
our food came from, or how it was grown or processed
or transported.
- How does the time of year affect where fruits
and vegetables come from or how they have been
processed? What locally grown fruits and vegetables
could you eat in Wisconsin in January? What
processing and storage techniques would you
need for each?
- We rely heavily on government regulation,
business responsibility, and the judicial system
to ensure the safety of our food, because consumers
usually don’t have any knowledge of the
specifics.
- The global food system relies a lot on energy
from fossil fuels and produces a lot of waste.
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