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Food and Climate: Thanksgiving Activities for 9-12

Food and Climate Change Guide For High School Students

This guide collects free Thanksgiving activities for 9-12, including lesson plans, interactive games, videos, and partner lessons that connect food to climate change. Activities span Science, ELA, Social Studies, and Economics. Use these hand-picked, ready-to-use resources to spark discussions with high school students about food production, food waste, food insecurity, and the solutions that can make our food system more sustainable.

Explore this Guide

Lesson Plans
Games & Activities
Videos & Reading Resources
Climate Explainers
Partner Resources

Thanksgiving Lesson Plans

Promote empathy and critical thinking with in-depth Thanksgiving lesson plans that explore Indigenous and global perspectives on the social and environmental impacts of food.

Persuasive Writing Lesson: Food Insecurity

In this lesson, students learn about food deserts and food inequalities by analyzing a map and scientific texts.

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Persuasive Writing Lesson: Food Insecurity

More Thanksgiving Lesson Plans

Food and Climate Change
Indigenous Storytelling: An Opinion Writing Lesson
Global Hunger Course

This interactive guide uses video, photos, and hands-on activities to show how food choices and climate systems affect each other.

Students read ʻulu stories alongside articles and podcasts, then write an opinion article about ʻulu as a climate-resilient food.

This four-module online course explores food production, global hunger, and food waste, and helps students find ways to reduce waste in their community.

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Thanksgiving Food Activities and Games

Get students engaged and invested in food systems with these unique games and activities that highlight real-world food issues and solutions.

Lakeland

In this free online game, students explore how population growth and farming practices affect a lake and the community around it.

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Lakeland

More Thanksgiving Activities and Games

Making Space for Food
Food for Thought Action Toolkit
To Farm or Not to Farm

This activity helps students visualize the area of land needed to grow or raise specific foods. 

This toolkit gives students steps to take action on food and climate in their school and community.

Students take on the role of a farmer and decide whether to plant crops under different weather and economic conditions, including drought.

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Thanksgiving Activities: Videos and Articles

Build food topics into your curriculum with videos and articles on the environmental impacts of food production and the role of sustainability.

Urban Farmers' Almanac

This guide helps students make more sustainable food choices in their neighborhoods, from eating more plants to composting at home.

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Urban Farmers' Almanac

More Videos and Articles for 9-12

Is Organic Really Better? Healthy Food or Trendy Scam?
Reduced Food Waste
Food Waste Causes Climate Change. Here's How We Stop It.

This video looks at the evidence behind organic food and whether it is better for our health and the environment.

This resource explains why cutting food waste is one of the most effective ways to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

This video explains how wasted food adds to greenhouse gas emissions and what we can do to stop it.

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Resources from Our Partners

Looking to add more food lessons and Thanksgiving activities for 9-12? Check out these video-based lesson plans from our partner, Educated Choices Program!

Educated Choices Program

The Planet and
Our Plates

Future of Food: Cell-based & Plant-based Technologies

The Environment and Modern Agriculture

Our Carbon
Foodprint

This video-based lesson explores how the food on our plates affects the health of our planet.

Students explore plant-based and cell-based proteins and discuss how new food technologies could change the way we farm and eat.

This lesson examines how modern farming practices affect land, water, and the climate.

This video-based lesson walks through each step of food production and shows students local actions to shrink their food footprint.

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Next Steps & Key Takeaways

• This guide collects free Thanksgiving activities for 9-12, including Thanksgiving lesson plans, Thanksgiving food activities, videos, and partner lessons that connect food to climate change.
• Activities span Science, ELA, Social Studies, and Economics, so you can fit them into any high school class this holiday season.
• Start with one of the Thanksgiving lesson plans, then add a game, video, or partner lesson based on your available time.

Explore SubjectToClimate.org to find more Thanksgiving activities for kids and high school resources on food, climate action, and more.

How to Use These Resources

Start with one of the Thanksgiving lesson plans to introduce food systems, then layer in games and activities. From there, pick and choose based on your available time and subject focus:

  1. For a full lesson sequence: Start with the Global Hunger Course, then have students argue for solutions in the Persuasive Writing Lesson: Food Insecurity.
  2. For a quick activity: Play Lakeland or watch Food Waste Causes Climate Change as a standalone activity, no prior lesson needed.
  3. For Science & Economics time: Pair To Farm or Not to Farm with The Environment and Modern Agriculture to weigh farming decisions in a changing climate.
  4. For ELA time: Pair Indigenous Storytelling with the Persuasive Writing Lesson for opinion and persuasive writing practice.

Check Out These Climate Change Explainers for More Background Knowledge

Teachers & Authors Featured in this Guide

Kate Strangfeld

Kara Hisatake is a SubjectToClimate teacher writer and the author of Indigenous Storytelling: An Opinion Writing Lesson.

Teaching Climate
Back to School
Math Guide
ELA Guide
SubjectToClimate
All resources can be used for your educational purposes with proper attribution to the content provider.
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