Curated OER
Fast Fats: A Nutritional Analysis of America's Obsession with Fast Foods
How do you read a nutritional label? Help high schoolers practice reading nutritional labels on foods so they can calculate the calories in different types of foods. They will also examine the effects of fat on the body and the link to...
Virginia Department of Education
Macromolecules
Finally, a chance for the class to play with their food! Allow pupils to simulate stomach acid with common foods, and introduce specific macromolecules into the mixture to explore characteristics of carbohydrates, lipids,...
Curated OER
Growing Pains
Students compare common food items with the parts of a plant. They grow their own plants to assess the difficulties in assisting a plant's growth and reproduction.
Consortium for Ocean Science Exploration and Engagement (COSEE)
Arctic Smorgasbord
Though the walrus spends roughly one third of its time on land, it eats organisms that live on the bottom of the ocean. The first in a series of five, the lesson plan uses a variety of plant and animal cards to have scholars build an...
University of Georgia
Would Your Cat Eat This Stuff?
Processed foods use inorganic compounds for flavoring and preservation. This take-home laboratory challenges scholars to find 20 different compounds identified on the labels of foods to list on their data collection sheet. The activity...
University of California
You Are What You Eat: Testing for Organic Compounds in Foods
We have all heard that we are what you eat, but what are we eating? An informative lesson opens with a discussion of the foods pupils have recently eaten. Then, young scientists perform four experiments on seven...
Curated OER
Growing Our Own Food: Sustainable Agriculture
Students identify the common food items in their community, plant a small garden and discuss how agriculture has helped growing nations.
Curated OER
Plant Part Exploration: Stems
Explore water transport in plant stems using this fun experiment! Your scientists will start by reading Stems by Vijaya Bodach. Then, activate prior knowledge about plant stem functions and water transportation....
Curated OER
Moldy Food
Learners investigate how mold grows on food. In this mold lesson, students review the food pyramid before growing mold on different foods in Zip-Loc bags. They create graphs that show how long it takes for mold to grow on different...
Curated OER
Calories and Nutrition
In this calories activity, students use a chart comparing the calories found in different food items to complete 3 short answer questions.
Curated OER
Ink
Here is an interesting lesson that has learners make ink from two common food items. First, they make ink from beets, then they make ink from onions. The recipes necessary for each are present in the plan. The special thing about the ink...
Curated OER
What Parts of a Plant Do We Eat?
Did you know that tomtoes and cucumbers are actually fruits? Biology or botany beginners read about the function of flowers and fruit and find that some food items commonly called vegetables are, by definition, also fruits! Give learners...
Curated OER
Food Math
Students brainstorm healthy food choices. In this health science lesson, students calculate how much of each food group they need daily. They plan a menu based on the "MyPyramid for Kids" food guide.
Curated OER
Farm Products Help Me Grow
Pupils view a display of empty food containers (or illustrations). They select a food and decide as a class if it has an animal or plant origin. Students view a display of common farm animals that are commonly eaten (cow, pig, chicken,...
PBS
Breaking Point
Leaf toughness can add to its herbivore appeal. Learns design an experiment to quantify leaf toughness and then perform their procedures. They follow the experiment with a set of questions that ask them to think about how leaf toughness...
Baylor College
Need or Want?
Even as adults it can be hard to distinguish needs from wants. Using pictures of common, everyday items, children make a pocket chart separating the objects they need from those that they want. Discuss their choices, explaining that...
Curated OER
Trophic Ecology of Humans
students analyze the place of humans among the tropic levels by observing what we eat. They calculate the caloric content of several foods commonly eaten by humans and calculate the total energy cost to grow, process, transport, store...
Curated OER
Cooking Up an Explanation
Students pose scientific questions about food items and research their explanations. They then create recipe cards with the answers and present their findings in a cooking show format.
Curated OER
The Digestive System
Discover how the human body's digestive system works with a brain and stomach friendly activity. Scholars taste test a variety of foods to find out how they behave once in the mouth. Class members then play a game called Move That...
Curated OER
The Portion is the Poison
Middle schoolers calculate the amount of everyday food products or liquids that would need to be consumed in order to become toxic. By using unit analysis, they calculate the amount of certain common food items that would need to be...
Curated OER
Making Blood!
students research blood's components, and use their math skills to recreate a model of whole blood using commonly found food items.
Florida International University
Pipeline to the Coral Reefs
Discover firsthand the effects of internal waves on coral reefs. Through a series of experiments, learners simulate internal waves and upwelling events as they make observations on the movement of water and other debris. They then...
Curated OER
Fishing for Good Nutrition
Students identify the food group that various foods fit into according to the food guide pyramid.
Curated OER
Observing the Nutritional Relationships in an Ecosystem
Make learning about food webs fun and fascinating for your fifth graders.