In Defense of Food

The book the Agricultural Issues class will be reading is "In defense of Food" by Michael Pollan. The following is a couple of excerpts from the book. Please comment on whether or not you agree with the excerpt or not and why.

"Get out of the supermarket. As soon as you do, accountability becomes once again a matter of relationships instead of regulation or labeling or legal liability. Food safety didn't become a national or global problem until the industrialization of the food chain attenuated the relationships between food producers and eaters. That was the story Upton Sinclair told about the Beef Trust in 1906, and it's the story unfolding in China today, where the rapid industrialization of the food system is leading to alarming breakdowns in food safety and integrity. Regulation is an imperfect substitute for the accountability, and trust, built into a market in which food producers meet the gaze of eaters and vice versa. Only when we participate in a short food chain are we reminded every week that we are indeed part of a food chain and dependant for our health on its poeples and soils and integrity on its health."

and:

"Today four crops (wheat, rice, soy beans, and corn) account for two thirds of the calories we eat. When you consider that humankind has historically consumed some eighty thousand edible species, and that three thousand of these have been in widespread use, this represents a radical simplification of the human diet....Humans are omnivores requiring somewhere between fifty and a hundred different chemical compounds and elements to be healthy. Its hard to believe we're getting everything we need from a diet consisting largely of processed corn, soybeans, rice, and wheat."

12 Angry Men

I just did another mini jury duty activity and the students had all sorts of issues they had to work through as a group. The discussions were great and so we worked on some other legal concepts (beyond a reasonable doubt, assumptions, speculation, etc.). I followed it up by showing the movie "12 Angry Men" and it really created a great discussion on duty, group work, bias, and reasonable doubt. I had forgotten who all stared in the movie other than Fonda but I recognized a bunch of others including Jack Klugman......consider the film, it raises lots of good discussion questions.

Travel Guide

I tried something today that worked out pretty well for my 6th grade social studies class. They are studying latin america and I had them each pick out a country and research it in order to convince me why I should visit. The students really got caught up in the geography, weather, interesting places, as well as festivals and celebrations.....I thought I would get standard research answers but a lot of students printed out pictures of cool places and maps from the airport....I think each student really learned something in depth...let me know what you think!

Modern Day Problems

I have a modern problems class, kind of like a current events class, that is suposed to have an agriculture bent...we have studyied most of the in your face issues and now I'm having a hard time to come up with topics...anyone know of intersting ways to bring current events into the classroom? I am getting kind of tired bringing in paper clippings and magazine articles...

when most of class is gone

Today was a difficult day with lots of students gone for various groups..I am teaching at a very small school and any activitiy that takes students away for the day really makes it hard to do anything. I have been previewing what I will be doing when everyone gets back but it still feels like a waste of time...anyone have any ideas for those days when you only have about 1/3 of your class?

Cool idea for business attendance

I just had a business teacher I talked to talk about how he has his students "punch into" class (like in some old businesses. They have a slip of paper with their name on it that has a square for each date of the month...They punch in just like you see in the movies and then move their card over to the "in" slot...this is an easy way to see who is absent and the students kind of get a kick out of it intitially. He becomes blase after awhile but then hopefully you know everybody by name and don't need to use it for a system anymore....Try it!

"Whats in my pocket"

I got a really cool starting class idea from one of my good friends who has been in this racket for awhile. He plays a game called "whats in my pocket" where students are given 20 questions to guess what he has in his pocket. Sounds kind of silly but it really does get students to think about forming good questions and how to narrow down options. The students really get into it and I can tell they are learning as the number of guesses is going down...try it!