November, Already!

Wow! Time is flying. Two months have passed and grade 5 keeps moving along in their learning. With that said, we have one more week of the Unit of Inquiry Unit, Global Food Production before moving on to our third unit of Growth and Development. This week, Grade 5 focused on inquiring sustainable practices in good food production, consumption, and waste.

Unit 2 - Unit of Inquiry

How We Organize Ourselves

Global Food Production

Central Idea: People have developed systems for producing and distributing food around the world

Lines of Inquiry:
Sustainable practice in food production
Sustainable Practices and Non-sustainable Practices

Success Criteria: 

List sustainable and unsustainable practices in agriculture methods.

After learning about sustainable practices, groups discussed and listed practices that are sustainable practices and unsustainable practices. Some students compared the practices to their groupś agriculture method of focus.

Agriculture Method Presentations

Success Criteria:

Using the SOLO Taxonomy, groups present their agriculture method to the class.

Groups spent two weeks investigating their chosen agriculture method. Together, they were able to make connections to other agriculture methods, and evaluate the pros and cons. Groups organized Google Slide presentations to educate their audience.

Sustainable Practices in Food Consumption and Waste

Success Criteria:

Research and collect data on the possible issue of food waste in the cafeteria

Question on the issue of Seisenś cafeteria food waste

Draw a conclusion and reflect on the amount of food waste in cafeteria

Plan an action to spread awareness of the issue on food waste

Grade 5 developed a curiosity of the amount of food wasted in the cafeteria after lunch period. Students used a Science Lab Report handout to organize their two-day research and data collection. Before the research, they estimated that the cafeteria collected 7kg~21 kg of food waste.

After two days of data collecting, students discovered that grades 1 to high school has thrown away a total of 17.5 kilograms of food in the garbage. We were shocked by the amount of food that is wasted.

Students wondered and guessed possible reasons why students would throw away the food. Each student listed possible reasons for wasting food, and interviewed Seisen students. We learned that the most common reasons students would throw away the food are: feeling full, wants to go to recess, or they did not like the food.

In our class discussions, students posted their wonders and questions as a response to the reasons.

Each student used menti.com to post their brainstorm of the possible action plan to spread the awareness of food wasting.