Energy, Environment, and Health

Subunit 1: Food Processing

The following components will be a vital part in developing a relevant, effective unit to teach about nutrition and how junk food contains mostly two macromolecules (carbohydrates and lipids in a processed form) and how they can take action to educate others about the harmful effects of processed foods.

1. Engage Activity: Corn versus Hot Cheetos. One of my students' favorite snacks is this spicy cheese puff called Flamin' Hot Cheetos. I would like to start the unit by asking the students when is the last time they had an ear of corn versus a Hot Cheetos. I will ask the students to compare how each one is made. Using realia is one strategy that helps English Language Learners process the information presented to them. The four modes of language acquisition include reading, writing, listening, and speaking. In this lesson, students will be listening to me and each other, and speaking about how the process is made. Then, they will write their ideas down on a white board and share it out with the class. By working in groups, the affective filter is lowered to encourage class participation.

• Processing of Foods: Students will do a matching activity (given the fresh form and the processed form of common foods, such as beef/beef jerky, pork/bacon, grapes/raisins) and then try to explain how the food gets from fresh to processed form. I will then present a reading with questions that students must answer on the processing of foods. An exit ticket will be used as an evaluation to assess if students learned the material. These materials are based on the lesson Food for Keeps ⁴⁰.
• Life Cycle Assessment: Using readings and graphic organizers, students will expert-base jigsaw to compare the life cycles of potatoes produced three ways: French fries, a Peruvian grown potato, and a locally grown, organic potato. This lesson is part of a unit from the Creative Change Energy Solutions ⁴². To evaluate students' understandings of the life cycle comparison, an exit ticket with sentence frames to aide English Language Learners will be provided. Students must be able to communicate at the end of the lesson which potato type requires more energy.

2. Ingredient breakdown: Cause and effect. To model for the students the assessment they will be responsible for after this unit, I will use a Powerpoint presentation entitled Processed Food for Thought (see Appendix B for text) showing chemicals added to a bag of Hot Cheetos and the health effects of each (ex. "high fructose corn syrup => diabetes"). After presenting the ingredients, I will ask the students why people eat Hot Cheetos (examples can include the cost, marketing, taste, convenience); I can pose the question what would happen if we took out the corporation's ability to market on television, etc. This discussion would lead to the reasoning behind why it is essential to understand food labels.

• Macromolecule lab: Students will be given a lecture and a reading of the four basic macromolecules and their subunits. Then, students will use indicators to first identify a specific macromolecule (e.g. iodine turns black in the presence of carbohydrates, Biuret reagent turns purple in the presence of protein, and lipids will turn brown paper transparent). Then students will test different foods to determine which macromolecules are present in different foods. Students will need to write a conclusion paragraph to indicate learning about different foods. A variety of processed and fresh foods will be presented (potato chips, apples, cereals, rice) in order to prepare the students for Step 3, Student Research.
• Processed Food Taste Test: Students will perform a taste test to determine for themselves why companies process foods. As noted earlier, food additives are used for a variety of reasons (texture, visual appeal, taste, nutritional supplements, etc.) but hopefully students will come up with their own reasons why companies would put additives in food products. Students will be given the following foods, in order: corn flour, corn meal, corn meal with salt*, sugar*, food coloring*, cheddar cheese flavor* (*each one added in combination with the previous ingredient), and finally Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Students will evaluate each based on visual appeal, texture, aroma, and taste (salty, sweet, sour, or bitter).

3. Student Research and Powerpoint. Students will be given a choice of one product from a list of processed foods to research. Students will look at the ingredients, and then describe the health effects of five of those ingredients (one per slide). Then, they will have to present three healthy alternatives to their chosen snack. For their conclusion to their presentation, students much present why junk food is bad.

4. Class discussion. After hearing all of the harmful chemical additives found in popular processed foods, students will discuss why people eat junk foods, why are corporations allowed to sell these harmful products to the general population when they know their products are bad, and who do these corporations sell their junk food to? The main idea is to show that junk food is harmful to human health.

5. Survey. Students will find at least five people who have eaten their product of research. Included in the survey will be a question that asks if the person was aware of the health effects caused by the chemicals found in their food.

6. Written assessment. Students will write about what they can do to better educate people about what they are eating.