Introduction
In this unit my class will explore the use of science in anthropology, which inevitably leads to the use of science in the fields of history and archeology. Specifically, the unit will be about the study of Native American traditions surrounding the preparation and consumption of food. This unit will be presented at the beginning of the year with the dual purpose of introducing my students to some Native American cultures in preparation for Hispanic heritage month and of introducing my students to the ways in which information is scientifically collected, analyzed, and distributed.
Part of the science curriculum in every topic of science taught in Connecticut is the use and evaluation of information. In Connecticut these ideas are generally included under the topic of science and technology in society. The applicable Connecticut science standards may be found in an appendix at the end of this unit. Connecticut science standards are based on the science standards that were written by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, so your state probably will have similar standards.
This curriculum unit models the process of scientific inquiry. Scientific inquiry is a major feature of all of my classes, so this unit at the beginning of the year is an extremely useful introduction to the process. The unit begins with an introduction to observation. The purpose of this section is to increase the students' awareness of the world around themselves. My students, as many high school students are, are still in a very egotistical phase of development and need to be trained to observe the world around them. In the next section the student's observational skills are put into practice. In that section we will begin to study some "things", food related items in particular. In the process of scientific inquiry, this is the part where the curiosity and, therefore, the inquiry starts. This is the place where questions begin to be asked. The next part of the unit, the "what do the things tell us" part of the unit, is where we start to think more deeply about the questions that came out of the things part of the unit. In this section we also start to think about what the objects can tell us. As it happens, all of the objects the students will study in this unit will have something to do with food preparation and eating. The next logical step, then, is to think about what types of foods individual cultures were eating such that they needed to make and use these food tools. In this section the students will choose a culture to research. They will try to discover what types of food were being eaten by their chosen culture, but they will also begin to study the ways in which information about cultures and peoples is gathered. This is one of the data collection phases of this unit. After the students have researched another culture's eating habits, they will research their own eating habits. They are, after all, still in an egotistical phase of development. After the food data has all been recorded, it will need to be analyzed. However, as this unit will be presented at the beginning of the year, the students will need some tools to help them analyze their data. In this case, they will need some nutritional guidelines. In this section, good food and good nutrition, the students will learn about the parts of a balanced diet. Using this new tool, the students will analyze the nutritional content of the food choices made by the culture they researched and the food choices that they made for themselves. The last piece of the curriculum unit is a conclusion and a new beginning. The students will look at their own diet and the diet of the culture that they studied and develop a new diet for themselves based on the results of the nutritional analysis of the two diets.
Comments: