Students Living in Urban Areas Learn from Food Crisis孫寧一

Students Living in Urban Areas Learn from Food Crisis

新北市環境教育輔導團團員孫寧一譯

For most students who live far away from rural areas rarely participate in the process of farming or grazing, it is quite difficult for them to reflect that food does not come just like a snap. In fact, food costs a great deal! Because these students do not have much experience in sweating to cultivate in the (rice) fields, therefore, dumping food is an easy act to them. The truth is, however, that we must now come face to face with food crisis; over-urbanization causes environmental problems which (will) result in food shortage. It is about time letting our children be aware of these issues and take action to prevent food waste.

The following is a simplified series of lessons on “food crisis” that allows the elementary school teachers in Taiwan to work with their students. These lessons cover world and domestic food crisis, responsive actions that ought to be taken, organic agriculture, and healthy diet and food choices. Most importantly, the students will grow crops on their own, thus leading them to gather information, organize discussion, and report results. This course package culminates in loving rice and learning to make rice dishes.

Activity One: Wold Food Crisis

- display photographs or clips on famine

- encourage children to express their thoughts

Activity Two: Problems and Solutions in Taiwan

- play “Our Island”, a film that depicts food shortage caused by climate change, excessive waste, and prices of food import

- encourage children to come up with tangible solutions

Activity Three: Satoyama Initiative

- introduce conservation of sustainable human-influenced natural environments (ie., balancing agricultural activities and natural environments to succeed in stable food production, better income, and ecological protection)

Activity Four: Rice Terraces

- play “Our Island”, a film that depicts the ecological functions these beautiful rice terraces do have

- encourage children to summarize what they have learned

- play “Let It Be”, a film that depicts present threats to the rice terraces in Taiwan (eg., industrialization and urbanization)

Activity Five: Organic Agriculture

- play “Farmer and His Farms”, a film that depicts how agricultural activities affect natural habitats

- introduce features of organic and modern agriculture and encourage children to compare and contrast

- stress the importance of bio-diversity, food chain, pest prevention, removing alien species

Activity Six: Golden Waves

- play “Story of Rice”, a film that depicts how rice is grown

- children learn to discriminate between different sorts of rice

- children learn to select and market rice

Activity Seven: Serving Rice

- children learn various rice dishes and their connections to traditional festivals by browsing web pages on the internet