Quality Core Curriculum Objectives:

HS  Biology    #  1 – Uses terms and processes employed in scientific research
                        #  2 – Uses reference sources appropriately.
                        #13 – Discriminates relationships when using a classification model to
                                   group living things.
                        #26 – Assesses man’s impact on the environment/explore ways to help
                                   solve ecological problems.

The students will be able to:

1)     trace some foods back to their source, including the impact on wildlife and the environment along the way to the consumer; and

2)     recommend, with explanations, some food habits that could benefit wildlife and the environment.

Materials:  writing and drawing materials

Background:

Most of us make lifestyle choices each day that have some impact on wildlife and the environment.  Many of those impacts are indirect, and therefore we are not as aware of them as we might be.  The choice of foods we eat, for example, is an area with many implications for wildlife and the environment.

The places and ways in which foods are grown have impact.  For example, we know that loss of habitat is one of the most critical problems facing wildlife.  Habitat may be lost to agricultural use or development as well as to industrial, commercial, and residential uses.  Given that people need food, the ways in which we grow that food – and the ways we care for the land in the process – are very important. 

Farmers can take measures to maintain and improve wildlife habitat as they grow and harvest their crops.   They can pay attention to the impact of their growing practices.  Both inorganic and organic fertilizers are commonly used in industrial agriculture.  These compounds may run off or leach into water supplies.  In lakes, for example, this run-off may contribute to a huge increase in the growth of plant nutrients such as algae.  This excess growth can act as a pollutant, poisonous to aquatic animal life such as fish, amphibians, arthropods, and insects.

Use of insecticides and herbicides also affects the environment, including wildlife.  Obviously, if pesticides kill and eliminate the food source for wildlife, the wildlife either leaves or dies.  Indirect effects can include accumulation of such pesticides in the bodies of animals – as in predatory birds, fish, and mammals, including people.

Not all of the impact is due to some farmers’ practices.  The transportation, processing, packaging, and marketing industries have an impact as well and involve many of our natural resources.  One example is increased exploration for and development of fossil fuels used to transport the food from growing site to consumer, and used often to fuel the processing and packaging  (as in the case of fossil fuel-derived plastics).

Procedure:

1.      Ask the students to generate a list of foods they either brought or bought for lunch.  Be sure to include any packaging materials the foods came in.

2.      Ask each student to pick one food to trace all the way back to its origins – including where and how it grew, was harvested, was transported, was packaged, and was made available to the consumer…the student.  Ask the students to make simple flow diagrams of the path the food takes.  (The students will need to do some additional research at this point).

3.      Next ask the students to add drawings or clipped photos of possible impacts to wildlife and the environment along the path their food took to get to them.

4.      Ask the students to report back to their classmates – using their diagrams as a visual aid -  as they describe the path taken by their food and its impact to wildlife and the environment along the way.

5.      Ask the students to discuss and summarize their findings.

6.      Ask the each student to think of one change he or she could make in his or her own lunch-time eating habits that would be likely to have a beneficial – or at least less harmful- effect on wildlife and the environment.