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Basic Project Information

Title: Food and Culture - a Global, Collaborative Classrooms Project (ID:3782) $

Begin & End Dates: 11/02/10 to 12/31/13 (Completed)

Number of Classrooms: No limit

Age Range: 5 - 21 Years

Target Audience: Anyone

Summary: Food and Culture is a global, collaborative classrooms project. Our goal is to have participation from every country in the world - eventually!

Students will form International Project Teams, then select one or more of the strands we have identified which are related to Food and Culture. These teams will then conduct collaborative research on the issues or topics they selected.

Topics related to Food and Culture are culinary arts, nutrition, school lunch programs, gardening, environmental studies, economics, clean water, hunger, childhood obesity and more.

All participating classes will participate in the creation of a Kids Global Cookbook, complete with recipes, essays, photos and other student artwork.

Teachers will contribute to the Global Children's Literature Database.

And each class will submit one student-produced video.

Key Words: Food and Culture, global collaborative classrooms, nutrition, childhood obesity, climate change, clean water, hunger, gardening, farming, sustainabili

Project Details

Project Level: Advanced Project

Curriculum Fit: Arts; Business; Community Interest; English as Foreign Language; Health; History; Information Technology; International Relations; Language; Mathematics; Multicultural Studies; Physical Education/Sports; Science; Social Studies; Technology; Vocational Education

Technologies Used: Blogs; Desktop Document Sharing; Digital Portfolios; Discussion Forum; Live Text Conference: IRC; Chat; IM; Postal Mail; Student created Webs; Voice over IP; Web-published; Audio: files; clips; CDs; tapes; Spreadsheet: data; analysis; Text: stories; essays; letters; Video: files; clips; CDs; tapes

Collaboration Styles Used: Electronic Publishing; Information Exchange; Electronic Appearance or Q & A; Expert Mentoring; Global Classroom; Intercultural Exchange; Information Search; Parallel Problem Solving; Peer Feedback; Social Action; Virtual Meeting or Gathering

Full Project Description:

Food is culture - Introducing the newest, most exciting global classrooms project online to date! Join now, and be prepared to get your students engaged, motivated and learning with this platform for rigorous, relevant and real-world curriculum.

Can you imagine how excited and motivated your students will be as they collaborate with students in classrooms in other countries? We will provide you with many ideas for your class, whether you're PK, high school or university. This entry point - food - has been the common factor in socialization and community building for thousands of years. But we don't have to stay focused just on food. This unit will expand into many directions, and you and your students will choose which possibilities to explore.

While younger students will focus on getting to know and love nature, gardening, cooking, nutrition and fitness, as well as cultural studies, the development of multiple literacies (such as financial literacy, media literacy, ecoliteracy and many more) older students will also be able to explore McDonaldization, Media Literacy, marketing and supermarkets (from neighborhood specialty shops to Whole Foods, a gourmet grocery store, to megamarkets), health issues, hunger, cultural similarities and differences, traditions, economics, agriculture, food production, law, environmental studies, cookbooks, literature, celebrations of life and death and everything in between - all these topics and many more are connected to Food and Culture.

Everyone eats. People around the world differ in many ways, but dinner unites us all.

For more details please see www.21stCenturySchools.com/Food_and_Culture.htm

or email Anne Shaw at Director@21stCenturySchools.com

Objectives:

The purpose of this project is the development of a global, collaborative classrooms project which will provide a context for students to: * Develop knowledge, skills and habits conducive to excellent health * Practice habits of responsible citizenship - locally to globally * Develop Global Competencies by studying "with" the world instead of "about" the world * Develop critical 21st Century Skills * Become engaged in a rigorous, relevant and real-world project * Engage the knowledge within the disciplines through research, problem solving and application * Learn - as opposed to memorizing then forgetting discrete facts

Final products will include:

*Global Kids Cookbook - with recipes, essays, photos and student art.

*Global Children's Literature Database

*Student-produced videos database (one from each participating class)

*One completed collaborative research project for each International Student Team

Project URL: http://www.21stCenturySchools.com/Food_and_Culture.htm