Farm to Table & Beyond
Topic: nutrition, environment, culture
Grade Level: 3-5
Location(s): Indoor, Outdoor
Season: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall
The curriculum book, Farm to Table & Beyond, which shows an older bald white man wearing glasses behind a stack of jars.
Curriculum Book
The module's driving question — What is the system that gets food from farm to table and how does this system affect the environment? — frames students' investigations of our complex and highly technological, global food system.

Tackle Real-Life Issues in Farm to Table & Beyond

        • Written by expert nutrition educators from the Teachers College Columbia University
        • Extensively pilot tested and evaluated

Farm to Table & Beyond, written by educators at The Teachers College, Columbia University, uses food systems to teach students critical ideas in scientific inquiry. The module's driving question — What is the system that gets food from farm to table and how does this system affect the environment? — frames students' investigations of our complex and highly technological, global food system. Students develop an understanding of systems and examine the interacting parts of food systems. They engage in hands-on investigations of the cycling of matter in nature and human impact on this cycle including energy and resource use in processing, packaging, and transporting food. Using scientific reasoning, students analyze their personal food choices and apply what they have learned as they make personal decisions related to food systems, health, and the natural environment.

Farm to Table & Beyond includes teacher lesson plans, background information, teaching tips, and tools for assessment; and student activity sheets and readings.

“This curriculum uses materials that are readily available and comes with excellent student activity sheets and readings. The inquiry applies to real-life issues the students encounter in their daily lives. My students could not stop talking about what they were learning.” – Nick G. , sixth-grade teacher

Read more about Farm to Table & Beyond in an article published in National Science Teacher Association’s Science Scope Journal.

View a sample lesson called From Field to Store.

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