One topic that always seems to fascinate my students is how climate change will impact food production. We take some time to do a data investigation but they always seem eager to do a deeper dive on the topic of food - though this year it might just be the fact that I have the class right before lunch.
I decided to take a few days and let them explore. I brought up Harper's Magazine's recent feature on lab grown meat and we discussed what types of foods we might see enter and leave our diets in the future. Students then found a few websites and articles focused on future foods. Students shared what they learned and the class compiled a list of foods. Finally, we discussed what foods would easily enter into the American diet, which ones we could see seamlessly integrate into other parts of the world, and which ones we thought would be a big flop. In all, it was an interesting discussion and and led to students questioning the validity of the sources they found as well. A great bonus claim testing activity!
Have you done anything similar with your students? Do you have any suggestions for what I could add in the future?
