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Food and the Environment

Food and the Environment

In Scotland, we have year-round access to nutritious, affordable food, produced both at home and imported from around the world. Most of us can name foods that are part of a healthy diet, but which of those foods are also good for environmental health locally and globally?

The Food and the Environment Topic has some natural overlap with Biodiversity, Health & Wellbeing and School Grounds.

One Planet Picnic

A One Planet Picnic is a picnic that is good for you and good for the planet. It is a fun way to make your food and drink choices environmentally friendly.

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Pocket Garden

A Pocket Garden is a miniature garden that uses edible plants, plants that attract wildlife, and that reuses something which would otherwise have been thrown away. Each year, we invite young people to send in their designs for a colourful and exciting environmentally friendly, pocket-sized garden. Pupils who send in the winning designs are then invited to build and grow their gardens to display. 

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Resources

A Bug's Life Creative Inquiry

Use this inquiry to think about how we plan and produce food.

Comic Strip Template

Create a comic strip about the story of a plastic bottle, a marine animal or anything else!

Dig Where You Stand

Cultural traditions, folklore, customs and crafts associated with the growing year and harvest in Scotland.

Don't Waste Our Future

A food waste reduction charter created by young people across Europe.

Eat Locally

How far has your food travelled to get to your plate?

Eat With the Seasons

To learn about which foods are in season in which months.

Experiment: Compost in a Bottle

What happens to food waste when it breaks down?

Experiment: It's Just an Apple!

How long does it really take litter to degrade? Find out with this experiment.

Flapjack Flavour

A quick and easy snack to make with your class.

FOOD, inc. Creative Inquiry

This film considers how food is produced and how it affects our health, workers' rights, animal welfare and the environment.

Goal 2: Zero Hunger

A list of learning activities and curricular links on Global Goal 2

Harvest Home

This resource focusses on harvest-time and is a guide to creating your own harvest event

Have a Grow!

A Dandelion resource offering all the guidance you’ll need to start growing.

Life of a Strawberry

Think about the food supply chain through the life of one strawberry.

Local Wild Food First Level Creative Inquiry

Explore your local area mapping wild foods, discovering Scotland's natural larder and trying a taste of the wild.

Lunch Boxes Activity

Calculate the carbon footprint of the food we eat and see if you can design a low carbon lunch.

Lunch Waste Audit

Conduct an audit of waste produced in your school canteen or lunch hall.

Mash Up

A card game all about potatoes for two players or a whole class.

Saving Seeds & Waking Seeds

An introduction to seed saving and the key principles for success.

Scotland's Local Food Stories

Scotland grows lots of different kinds of food, all with different names, characters, tastes, and tales.

Scots Language History & Food: Creative Enquiry Level 2

There are strong links in Scotland’s heritage between language, culture and food.

Scots Language History & Food: Creative Inquiry Level 3

A third level Creative Inquiry on the themes of Scots Language, Cultural History and Food and the Environment

Sow Many Seeds

An introduction to seeds and their part in history and culture

The Lunchbox Third Level Creative Inquiry

Ideas for discussion and reflection on what this film means to you.

The School is the Menu

Create a signature dish inspired by your school and everyone in it.

Thinking About Food

Get pupils thinking differently about the food that they eat.

Top Plants

A card game for 2 players all about plants that can grow in your school grounds

Totally Tatties

How to get started with spuds including harvest and storage, varieties, and ideas for tattie activities.

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Zero Hunger Scenario

Lessons on food and hunger from FEE.

When Food Becomes Trash

Food waste and climate lesson from Deutsche Welle in partnership with FEE.

Food for the Future

Lesson plans on food and climate from Deutsche Welle in partnership with FEE.

How to Use a GrowCube

A GrowCube is a mini version of a large scale hydroponic growing system. This resource is a guide to using a GrowCube including setup and maintenance.

The Eco-Schools objectives in this area cover physical, emotional and cognitive aspects. Motivation for sustainable living is gained through practical action, emotional engagement, and improved understanding:

Hands – reconnect children and young people with raw foods and ingredients and their processes of production.

Heart – foster an appreciation of local distinctiveness and the intimate associations between place and food.

Head – develop awareness of the impacts on the environment of different methods of food production and processing.

Head : heart : hands – develop an awareness of the links between our food choices, the environment and people and places elsewhere.

 

Through work on the Food and the Environment Topic, pupils should:

  • Understand the range of food choices available to us.
  • Understand the resources and skills required for food production and processing.
  • Recognise the value of healthy, stable ecosystems to food production.
  • Understand the wider environmental implications of our food choices.
  • Recognise the dimension of social responsibility in our food choices.
  • Recognise our own food culture within a diversity of food cultures.

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