$1 Million Orange

Vocabulary: Nutrition, Food Systems, Local, Processed

Grade Levels: K- 2nd

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Science Framework

Spanish Lesson Plan

Lesson Bridge:

Connect this lesson (2) to ‘Ancient Agriculture/Drought Hardy Gardens’’ (1) by asking students if they remember how ancient agriculturists used to grow and harvest crops. Compare and contrast modern day methods to ancient methods.

Lesson Overview:  

In this lesson students will make orange juice to learn the steps and costs involved in processing food from its original form to its final form. The activity in this lesson will promote a natural curiosity about how food affects their health while reinforcing food and agriculture as their connection to a better quality of life. Students will assess the advantages and disadvantages of processed food and its effect on our society in jobs, costs, energy use, health, and environmental impacts.

Suggested Activities & Learning Objectives by Grade:

• K:

• K-ESS3-3 How does the food we eat affect the environment?
• K-ESS3-3 How can we change our food choices to improve the environment?

• 2:

• 2-LS2-2 How does the food production system distribute seeds across the world unintentionally?

Essential Question(s) that Connect CCCs and SEPs:

• Where does an orange tree get its energy?(Energy & Matter; Asking Questions & Defining Problems)
• Where does the energy come from when we turn oranges into orange juice? (Energy & Matter; Asking Questions & Defining Problems)
• If it takes two oranges to make a cup of orange juice, how many oranges would we need for every student in the class to have a cup of orange juice? (Scale, Proportion & Quantity; Using Math and Computational Thinking).

Vocabulary:

Nutrition- The study of food and how it affects the body

Food Systems- All of the steps food takes to end up on our plates and in our bellies

Local- Within the same area

Processed- To change something by special treatment

Materials:

• A collection of processed foods.
• Oranges (best acquired free from SLO Food Bank)
• Large bowl
• 1 small paper cup per student
• Soap
• Hand sanitizer and sanitizer spray
• Flow of Water Series Garden Journal (optional)

Prep:

• Call the foodbank to arrange a time to pick up a box of oranges. Or, if you have money in your garden budget, purchase the oranges.
• Check out the book An Orange in January by Dianna Hutts Aston (available through OCE Library, Local Library system, and many school libraries).
• Sanitize tables and cooking implements.
• Pre-cut oranges so that you are ready for students to begin squeezing!

Engage:

Begin with a classroom discussion in the seating area in your garden or in the classroom.  Ask the following questions: What’s the difference between an orange and orange juice? What steps are involved in making orange juice? What do you need to make juice?

Explore:

Invite students to pass around different processed foods and together, read the labels to figure out what is in them. Alternately ask them to imagine what ingredients are in them, and how those ingredients come from the earth. Would it be cheaper to buy foods like these from a store or make them yourself? Why/why not?

Explanation:

If you have an Orange in January you can start by reading this and proceed to the following discussion. Have you ever heard about processed foods before? What does that mean? That means food that has had something done to it, to change it from the form it is found in nature. For example, bread is a processed food, because you don’t just get bread on a bread bush, you have to first grow wheat, and then wheat seeds need to be harvested and then processed to make flour. After the flour is made, then it needs to be even processed further to bake it into bread. Processed foods take a lot more energy and work to make. Due to this they are usually more expensive. It is more expensive to buy a can of jam than it would be to buy the fruit and sugar to make that jam with! Today we are going to make orange juice, a processed food, to learn about the steps involved to make orange juice.

Action:

1. Review your Garden Agreements
2. Have every student wash their hands.  20 seconds, or the length of time it takes to sing happy birthday, is the right amount of time it takes to clean germs off of our hands.
3. Talk about the first job that happens in orange juice production: The oranges have to be harvested! How do we think oranges are harvested?
4. Then the oranges are transported to a place where they can be juiced - sometimes on the other side of the country! Walk to a different location in the garden, to where the orange slices are waiting.
5. Now the oranges are juiced, usually by machines. Let’s pretend we are a machine and take turns juicing the oranges into this bowl. Have students take turns squeezing the orange juice into the bowl. *You may want to add some water to increase the volume of juice.
6. Now that the oranges are juiced, we have to package our juice so that it can be sold. Pour the orange juice into separate cups for all of the students.
7. Once all of the orange juice is packaged, it now has to be taken to grocery stores all over the country! You can have students scatter around the garden and individually bring them their cup of orange juice.
8. Have students throw away their cups, and then talk about the trip that the packaging has to take to then get to a landfill.

Reflect:

What did you learn about making orange juice? Is it processed food? What are some advantages of making orange juice at home? What are some disadvantages? How many steps does an orange take in food production? It’s expensive, right!?

Extension Activities:

• Have students research food preparation in other cultures such as that of Native Americans in precolonial times.  Compare it with food preparation today.
• Have students investigate prices of foods in their original form and the same products in processed forms.  How many processed products can they find for one original food?