This interactive guide from Harvard University and the Gaples Institute explains the many ways that plant-based diets keep people and the planet healthy.
Students will learn that diets including more plants and fewer animal products are more sustainable and may reduce the risks of disease.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The guide consists of a series of narrated slides that break the material up into manageable sections.
Interactive tasks throughout the course will keep students engaged.
The last slide in the guide links to other resources.
Additional Prerequisites
Students that want to learn more about the environmental impacts of meat production can watch this video.
Differentiation
Life skills, culinary arts, or health classes could cook a variety of meat-free recipes. Students could choose their favorite recipes to compile into a digital cookbook, then share it via email or the school's website.
Biology classes could track the number of animal products they eat each week. Students could replace a few animal products each week with plant-based foods.
Science classes could use this resource for lessons about cellular respiration, nutrition, macromolecules, the carbon cycle, the water cycle, or climate change.
Environmental clubs or science classes could evaluate the school cafeteria's monthly menu and request more plant-rich meals.
This interactive guide displays good tips on eating healthy foods in order to save the planet. It provides charts for students to explore and compare the carbon footprints of selected plant-based and animal-based foods. This resource is adequately cited and thus, it is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-3 Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.
5-ESS3-1 Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment.
HS-ESS3-4 Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on natural systems.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Economics
D2.Eco.1.6-8 Explain how economic decisions affect the well-being of individuals, businesses, and society.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Speaking & Listening (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.6.2 Interpret information presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and explain how it contributes to a topic, text, or issue under study.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.4.3 Identify the reasons and evidence a speaker provides to support particular points.
