In this video-based lesson, students will learn about the environmental impacts of conventional farming practices and new and innovative alternatives to conventionally produced meat and dairy.
Students will complete guided notes while watching the video, participate in a group discussion, create their own "future food" restaurant, and plan sustainable swaps for their current diet.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The video includes built-in checkpoints for teachers to use to encourage class discussion and check for comprehension.
This video can be used as a stand-alone resource or can be used with provided materials that support the topics addressed.
Additional Prerequisites
Those who want to use this resource need to answer questions and provide an email address to get an access link and password.
Below the video are additional resources that can accompany it, although the answer keys are not accessible with the password provided.
Differentiation
Students can create an infographic to demonstrate the process of making cultivated meat or animal-free dairy and eggs.
Business students would benefit from the first activity provided, planning your own restaurant. Students can also research the restaurants that already use things like cultivated meat, alternative dairy, and/or plant-based protein.
Health classes can swap out one meal per week with a more sustainable choice, or can do an activity creating a weekly meal plan that doesn't use conventionally produced meat or dairy.
Civics classes can come up with a bill to promote sustainable food production, thinking about incentives and disincentives that could promote change. Students should keep in mind other jobs that will be created to replace livestock production jobs.
Scientist Notes
This video resource from the Educated Choices Program explores food production and how cell-based and plant-based technology can replace foods from livestock. The video begins by showing the process of technological change and then turns to the problems with conventional farming, particularly climate change and animal suffering. The video then turns to how cell-based or cultivated meat is produced, why it is good for the environment and how the technology is growing more inexpensive and scalable. Throughout the video, sources are shown on screen and several industry videos show how cultivated meat is made. This video also asks several questions, where teachers could pause the video and ask students to respond and one ordering activity is included right in the video. A quiz is posted on the website, and two additional lesson plans guide students in understanding food technology and exploring how social media is used to influence consumers and market food products. This resource is visually attractive, well-sourced, and is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
LS1: From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes
HS-LS1-4 Use a model to illustrate the role of cellular division (mitosis) and differentiation in producing and maintaining complex organisms.
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
MS-LS2-1 Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem.
HS-LS2-7 Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Economics
D2.Eco.2.6-8 Evaluate alternative approaches or solutions to current economic issues in terms of benefits and costs for different groups and society as a whole.
D2.Eco.1.9-12 Analyze how incentives influence choices that may result in policies with a range of costs and benefits for different groups.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Speaking & Listening (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.8.3 Delineate a speaker's argument and specific claims, evaluating the soundness of the reasoning and relevance and sufficiency of the evidence and identifying when irrelevant evidence is introduced.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.9-10.2 Integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1 Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11-12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
National Health Education Standards
Standard 1: Students will comprehend concepts related to health promotion and disease prevention to enhance health.
1.12.3 Analyze how environment and personal health are interrelated.
Standard 3: Students will demonstrate the ability to access valid information, products, and services to enhance health.
3.12.3 Determine the accessibility of products and services that enhance health.
Standard 7: Students will demonstrate the ability to practice health-enhancing behaviors and avoid or reduce health risks.
7.8.2 Demonstrate healthy practices and behaviors that will maintain or improve the health of self and others.
