GROWING FOOD

ABOUT THESE LESSONS

The lessons in Set D aim to stimulate learners� interest in home-grown food as an enjoyable experience, a source of health and a personal achievement. They build up learners� skills and knowledge and make good eating a point of conversation in the home.

After deciding what to grow, you will have to decide what lessons you will need on essential horticulture (Set F). The garden project will also involve decisions about preparing and processing food products (Set G). The overview lessons from Set H should be spread through the growing season.

1. WHAT WE EAT This is the first of three very basic lessons about diet, to be followed by Good eating (1) and Good eating (2). The aim of these lessons is to make learners aware of what they eat and of some important dietary messages. It also enables teachers to find out about learners� diet, their feelings about food and their ideas of what "good food" is.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Learners

- are able to describe their own diet
- become aware of the idea of variety in a diet
- become aware of how many different fruits and vegetables they normally eat.

RESOURCES NEEDED

- small samples or pictures of the local staple food (e.g. rice, cassava, maize) and some frequently eaten local foods
- a large circle of paper/cardboard to represent a plate/dish
- glue

LESSON

1. Lead-in Present the paper "plate" and lay it flat.
Ask: What is the main food we eat every day? When learners tell you, put a sample of the staple food in the middle of the paper plate and glue it on. Introduce older learners to the term "staple food".

2. What else do we eat? (For younger learners) As learners suggest foods, glue on food samples, draw pictures on the "plate", or write on food names. Put animal foods on the left and plant foods on the right � learners should say which side. If they mention mixed dishes (e.g. soup, stew), ask them to say the main ingredients so as to decide where to put them. At the end, display the "plate" on the wall.

(For older learners) Divide the plate into sections, as in the Guide, label the parts, ask learners to say which section each food should go in and write in the names. After a few foods, learners copy the "plate" into their books and work in groups to extend the lists.

3. Counting Learners count how many different foods they have thought of, how many animal foods, how many plant foods / fruits / vegetables etc. Ask them to guess how many different foods they eat each day. Explain that for homework they have to count them.

FOLLOW-UP

1. Food count: one day Younger learners count and remember all the foods they eat in one day, tell their families, and report in class.

2. Food count: one week Older learners draw up a table (as below) showing all the different foods eaten in one week, divided into animal foods/legumes and fruits and vegetables.

3. Poster: Our Food Create a circular poster (like the food plate) with pictures and names of the commonest local foods, and display it. It will be useful for later lessons, in particular Lesson D3 Good eating (2).

LESSONS IN OTHER SUBJECTS

Nutrition and health Diet

THE FAMILY MIXED MEAL GUIDE

2. GOOD EATING (1) This lesson and the next aim to build positive attitudes to fruit and vegetables, first through personal preferences and then with reference to nutritional value.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Learners

- become aware that fruit and vegetables should be highly valued
- express personal preferences for particular fruits and vegetables
- learn to appreciate the smell, taste and texture of particular fruits and vegetables.

RESOURCES NEEDED

Bring (or ask learners to bring) samples of fruits and vegetables which are particularly good for the diet (e.g. carrot, tomato, broccoli, mango, guava, red capsicum, orange sweet potato, pumpkin, green leafy vegetables, beans, peas, groundnuts, pawpaw, orange). They should be in edible form and attractively presented (e.g. on leaves, in a basket, in coloured paper). If learners bring them, ask parents to make sure that the foods are washed, and handled with clean hands.

PREPARATION

Learners count the number of different foods they consume in a day or a week.

LESSON

1. Lead-in: clean hands Say that today we will be handling foods, so everyone�s hands should be clean � i.e. washed with soap and running water. Give learners the opportunity to wash hands.

2. Food count Ask learners how many different foods they ate in a day or a week. Show you are impressed by a) many different foods and b) a lot of fruit and vegetables. Lead the class in clapping each time there is a mention of beans, green leafy vegetables, yellow or orange fruits or vegetables etc. N.B. Take the opportunity to get an idea of learners� diet.
Is there variety? Is there enough fruit? Are there enough vegetable protein foods (beans, peas, groundnuts)?

3. Personal preferences Explain that fruit and vegetables are very important foods and very delicious. Display some food samples. Ask which they like best, why they like them and how they like to eat them. Praise ALL positive responses and build up feelings of enjoyment.

4. Sensory awareness: Five-Star Foods

Based on Kiefer and Kemple (1998)

a) Choose one food (e.g. a carrot) and keep it hidden. Ask two volunteers to stand in front of the class and close their eyes. Bring out the food so the class can see it.

- Volunteers (and class) "listen" to the food
(e.g. break the carrot). What is the sound like? (e.g. sharp, snappy). Can the volunteers guess the food?
- Next, volunteers smell the food. How does it smell? (e.g. earthy, sweet).
- Volunteers handle the food and say how it feels
(e.g. cool, hard, damp). Can they guess?
- Ask volunteers to open their eyes and take a good look. With the class, describe the food (e.g. It�s long and orange and it has little hairs on it. Inside it has different shades of colours.)
- Give volunteers a piece to eat. Ask them to eat it slowly and say how it tastes (e.g. sweet, crunchy, cool). Join them in eating and show obvious pleasure.

b) Divide the class into groups of five. Each group selects a food. They go through all the senses (smell, taste, touch, hearing, sight) in the same way, then report back. Once they have fully appreciated the food, they can eat it � but wash it first.

FOLLOW-UP

Five-star food Learners find a favourite fruit or vegetable at home. They examine it with all five senses and tell families about it (families can participate too!). They then draw them, write a description or poem (as in Guides A and B), and read them out for others to guess (as in Guide C). Collect poems or descriptions together in a Fruit and Vegetable Book.

LESSONS IN OTHER SUBJECTS

Language Vocabulary for sense impressions, poetry

Art Still life

LEMONS

What can you feel? see? smell? taste? hear? How many senses?

FAVOURITE FOODS

WHAT IS IT?

3. GOOD EATING (2) Many people undervalue fruit and vegetables nutritionally. This lesson aims first to find out what learners think, then build up positive attitudes and finally send them out as "food missionaries" to promote fruit and vegetables.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Learners

- appreciate that fruit and vegetables are essential to health
- recognize the special value of dark green leaves and orange/yellow fruits and vegetables
- can express and explain some simple messages for improving the diet.

RESOURCES NEEDED

- small pictures or names of common local foods on cards / pieces of paper, including several fruits and vegetables, some yellow and orange fruits and vegetables and some dark green leafy vegetables
- some means of pinning up these "food cards"

PREPARATION

The "food cards" can be prepared by the teacher or by the learners.

Draw a "ladder" of about 15 rungs on the wall or board to pin the food cards on.

LESSON

1. Lead-in Show the prepared "food cards". Learners each choose one which they think is a really good food, a food they should eat every day or at least once a week. Older learners can say why they think it is good.
As learners make their choices, pin up the food cards on the "ladder". The more "votes" the food gets, the higher it goes. This gives a quick picture of learners� "food values".

2. Food values Look at the "food ladder" together. Tell learners that all foods are good foods and everything they say is right. But some foods are particularly good.

a) ALL fruits and vegetables are very important. Ask learners to move all fruits and vegetables one step up the ladder.

b) ORANGE AND YELLOW FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
are very good for eyesight and for staying healthy. The class identifies these (e.g. pumpkins, carrots, mango and papaya) and calls them out. Learners move them two steps up the ladder.

c) Finally, DARK GREEN LEAFY VEGETABLES keep us very healthy. Again, the class identifies these
(e.g. amaranth, spinach, pumpkin leaves and sweet potato leaves) and calls them out, and learners move them up two steps.

d) Older learners choose a food, look it up in the table in the Guide and tell the class what it is particularly good for.

3. Messages Teach younger learners these four messages and ask them to tell their families:

Eat many different foods.
Eat many fruits and vegetables.
Eat dark green leaves.
Eat yellow/orange fruits and vegetables.

4. Advice Give older learners a mixture of good and bad advice, as below. They have to pick out the good advice (marked with a star*) � e.g.

Eat orange fruits and vegetables.*
Eat mostly meat.
Eat rice/cassava/maize (or other staple food) every day.*
Eat many fruits and vegetables.*
Eat some meat or beans and a lot of fruit and vegetables.*
Eat only fruit and vegetables.
Eat dark green leafy vegetables often.*
Eat many different foods.*

FOLLOW-UP

1. Food values Learners ask family members to name good foods as they did in class, then tell them the messages.

2. Flag Make a GOOD HEALTH flag with large strips of orange, dark green and yellow paper/cloth. Learners stick pictures or names of dark green leafy vegetables and yellow and orange fruit and vegetables onto the appropriate coloured strips. Display the flag and train learners to explain it to visitors.

3. Local food guide (for older learners) Ask a local nutritionist to help learners draw up a modified Guide showing local foods.

LESSONS IN OTHER SUBJECTS

Nutrition & Health Nutritional needs and nutritional value

NUTRITIONAL VALUE OF COMMON FOODS

**** The more stars the better

Note: This chart is extremely simplified. Learners should know that ALL foods give us energy, help us to grow and keep us healthy, but that some foods are particularly good for some of these needs.

4. FOOD PLANTS Urban children often have no idea how their food relates to the plants it comes from. With processed foods all children may have some difficulty, and even rural children find it hard to say what an onion is!

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Learners

- are aware of the range of plants that can be eaten
- can recognize and name the different parts of food plants
- can classify foods according to the part of plant they come from.

RESOURCES NEEDED

- a large bag
- large labels saying ROOT, STEM, FLOWER, SEED, FRUIT, LEAF
- samples of foods which come from different parts of plants (see table below) - easy ones for younger learners and a mixture for older learners

Plant part	Easy to guess	Difficult to guess
roots and tubers	carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, cassava root	ginger powder, cassava flour
stems	celery, kohlrabi, sugar cane	granulated sugar
leaves	spinach, sweet potato leaves, lettuce, cabbage	onions, tea
buds	broccoli	brussels sprouts
fruit	citrus fruit, avocado pears, bananas, mangoes, papaya	cucumbers, peppers, okra, tomatoes, pumpkins
seeds	rice, maize, sunflower seeds, millet, tree nuts, beans	bread, maize flour, rice cake, coffee, cooking oil

PREPARATION

Put the collected foods into a large bag.

LESSON

1. Lead-in Show three or four plant foods. Learners think of other plants we use for food.

2. Which part?

a) Draw a picture of a plant showing root, stem, leaf, flower/bud, seed, fruit (as above). Learners name and label the parts.

b) Set up labelled stations in the room for the various plant parts (Root Corner, Leaf Table etc.).

c) Show the first plant foods again and ask what part of the plant they come from. The class classifies the samples and puts them under the correct label.

d) One by one, learners pull more foods out of the bag. For each food the class decides which category to put it in and learners carry the foods to the correct corner.

Idea from Kiefer and Kemple (1998)

FOLLOW-UP

1. Collage Younger learners draw foods from plants and say which part of the plant they come from.

2. Poster Older learners create a poster with a drawing (as in the Guide), showing local plant foods in the appropriate categories. Teams can be responsible for different segments.

LESSONS IN OTHER SUBJECTS

Biology Plant parts, plant life cycle

FOOD PLANTS

5. WHAT SHALL WE GROW TO EAT? Garden managers may take the final decision on what to grow, but learners should be consulted and encouraged to think of the end result and should if possible make some of their own choices. This lesson, which should be done before planting, develops their capacity for reflecting, deciding and planning. Follow up this lesson with further research in Lesson D 6 Crop experts.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Learners make decisions/suggestions about what food crops to grow based on preference and understanding.

RESOURCES NEEDED

- cards with pictures or names of local fruits and vegetables from Lesson D 3 Good eating (2).

LESSON

1. Lead-in Explain that if we want food to eat we have to decide what to grow. Learners call out a few ideas for crops and pick out appropriate "food cards". Add some choices of your own.

2. Criteria How shall we decide? Present the four questions

- Do we like it?
- Is it very good for us?
- Can we grow it?
- How can we eat it?

For older learners, write up a question in each corner of the board. For younger learners, give one question each to four learners, who stand in the four corners of the room and call out their questions.

3. The food candidates Take a card for one of the suggested foods. Discuss all four questions for this food, calling as much as possible on learners� own knowledge.

a) Do we like it? Learners to say how they like to eat this food (e.g. in particular dishes).

b) Is it very good for us? All foods are good for us � but show special favour to orange/yellow fruits and vegetables, dark green leafy vegetables, legumes (beans, peas, groundnuts) and oilseeds. Learners recall what they learned in Lesson 3 Good eating (2).

c) Can we grow it? Discuss how easy or difficult this crop is to grow.

d) How can we eat it? How shall we prepare it? Also ask: Is it difficult? Will this be a main dish or a snack? What other foods will we need to go with it? Can we grow them too? This is an opportunity to think about the final dishes and other foods needed to create them.

4. Selection If the answer to all the questions is favourable, stick the food card in the middle of the board. Discuss the other proposed foods in the same way until there is a collection of "highly approved" foods on the board. These are the class�s recommendations.

5. Checking Older learners review the recommendations to check that there are

- several different foods for variety
- most of the necessary ingredients for some good dishes
- some foods for drinks and snacks (see Guides A; B; C).

FOLLOW-UP

1. Advocacy Learners tell families some of the foods they have selected and why. Older learners write an "advocacy sheet" for a crop of their own choice, or design an advertising poster responding to the four questions.

2. Snack book Compile a "snack book" of local snacks with recipes and pictures by learners.

3. Special snacks Learn to make maize/sorghum popcorn (see Guide B) and sprouts from beans or pumpkin seeds (see Lesson A5 Seeds and germination).

LESSONS IN OTHER SUBJECTS

Home Economics, Nutrition Snacks and drinks.

SNACKS FROM THE GARDEN

ROOT CROPS AND CEREALS

Some snacks from roots and cereals are sweet potato, cassava, bread roll, maize cob, rice cake.

HOW TO MAKE POPCORN

DRINKS FROM THE GARDEN

6. CROP EXPERTS Once you have decided what to grow, learners can gather more information about the particular crops. Becoming "crop experts" gives learners motivation and a sense of status. This lesson prepares them for independent research and a role as class consultants. N.B. Full presentations from student teams will need a second lesson.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Learners

- research the crops they have chosen to grow, and become "crop experts"
- learn to find information from several sources.

RESOURCES NEEDED

Each "crop team" will need the Crop Factsheet Questionnaire (Guide A or B) to take away. For younger learners, use a simplified version (Guide A). Make copies, or suggest that learners in teams copy out a few questions each.

PREPARATION

Choose one of the crops that the class plans to plant and complete the Factsheet Questionnaire for it (Guide A or B). (Both have examples of the questions answered for a sample crop, kale.) Make a note of where learners can find information about crops.

LESSON

1. Lead-in Learners recall the crops they want to plant. Write up the names. Explain that they are all to become experts on different crops so that the whole class can consult them.

2. Crop facts What do we need to know about these crops? Look at the Crop Factsheet Questionnaire (Guide A or B). Learners discuss and answer the questions for the crop you have prepared. Give answers where learners can�t. Say where you got the information.

3. Selection Learners select the crops they want to study and form "crop teams".

4. Sources Learners discuss what they already know about their chosen crops, and where to get further information � for example, observing; asking at home, in markets/shops, in fields/gardens; speaking to teachers, friends, family, neighbours, local gardeners; reading seed packets / gardening books or the Food Factsheets in the School Garden Manual).

5. Time frame Discuss and decide how much time crop teams will need to complete their Factsheets, and fix a date for class reports.

Note: If this project is done well, learners will become a very useful "class memory". Make sure the class consults them and uses their knowledge, and do so yourself to set an example. But keep a check on what your "experts" say! Class presentations (by older learners) not only spread knowledge, but also allow you to check learners� facts and correct mistaken ideas.

FOLLOW-UP

1. Presentations (older learners) Teams present their findings. An alternative to oral accounts is poster presentations: each team pins up its completed factsheet in a different place. Half the team stays with their factsheet to answer questions while the others circulate, studying each others� factsheets and asking questions of other teams.

2. Reference factsheets Teams prepare final versions of their crop factsheets, corrected and clearly written, and put them in the Garden File. Use the factsheets as part of a promotional display when the crops are harvested.

3. Advertising campaign If learners are familiar with advertising, teams can run campaigns for their crops in the school.

LESSONS IN OTHER SUBJECTS

Project work Research strategies: finding sources.

CROP FACTSHEET QUESTIONNAIRE (for younger learners)

¹E.g. groundnut shells can be compressed for fuel; sunflower oil is good for lamps or as lubricant; pigeon pea stems make good fuel; bottle gourds make containers; bananas leaves are used for baskets and wrapping food; papaya leaves tenderise meat; pineapple fibre from young leaves makes fabric, coconut shells are used for bowls.

QUESTIONNAIRE A COMPLETED FOR KALE (example for younger learners)

CROP FACTSHEET QUESTIONNAIRE (for older learners)

QUESTIONNAIRE B COMPLETED FOR KALE (example for older learners)