Social Studies Grade Three Concepts
Students will know:
Students will:
Students will:
Students may:
Teachers may choose to deal with agriculture in the context of diverse situations such as bee keeping, growing rice, harvesting maple sugar, dairy farming, plantation agriculture in the tropics, sheep farming in Australia, and the various kinds of agriculture in the communities under study.
Community comparisons in grade three provides an exciting opportunity for students to explore food related issues from a global perspective. The context which the teacher chooses will depend upon the teacher's and students' interests and expertise, and available resources.
Foods from around the world Brainstorm the question, "Where do we get our food?" Have students suggest ways they can find out where food comes from. Sources of information could include:
When you have compiled information about food and where it comes from, categorize these foods into three categories, those from Saskatchewan, those from other parts of Canada, and those from other countries of the world. Graph this information. Make pictures to represent food items to be graphed. Interpret the graph and write a group composition explaining the interpretation.
In a brainstorming session have students list all the food items they can think of that are produced locally or in Saskatchewan. Ask the students to suggest ways they can find out what other products are produced in Saskatchewan. For example they could:
Collect the information and add to the list the class brainstormed about food commodities produced in Saskatchewan. Make necessary deletions to the list. Make a web or chart using the information about food commodities produced in Saskatchewan. Put "Agricultural Products" as the main idea. Commodities grown in Saskatchewan will be subconcepts. Products made from agricultural commodities grown in Saskatchewan will be the third level.
Food production Make connections between agriculture and climate. Have students identify foods they eat which can and and those which cannot be grown locally or in Saskatchewan. Locate places on a climate map where crops such as tropical fruits and rice may be grown. Speculate on the routes commodities from various parts of the world would follow to arrive in your community. How would Saskatchewan commodities get to various parts of the world? Guide students to understand interdependent relationships.
Use atlases to explore the relationship between climate and agricultural activity. Use Nelson World Atlas p. 30 & 31 and p. 36 & 37. Begin by discovering the relationship between areas of the world where there is no farming and the climate in those areas. Generally speaking, farming does not take place in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic regions, deserts, and high mountains. Notice that plantation farming that would produce tropical fruits such as bananas and other tropical crops such as rice takes place between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. Notice that grain farming takes place in the temperate regions of the world.
Bring a variety of agricultural commodities to class, including agricultural commodities from Saskatchewan and from other places. Suggestions include small plastics bags containing grains, corn, wild rice, and rice, potatoes, honey, oranges, bananas, apples, kiwi fruit, pineapple. Classify these foods in different ways, for example according to the four major food groups or according to those grown in Saskatchewan and those not grown here.
Using children's encyclopedia or other resources, research agricultural commodities. A jig- saw method of group research could be used. Have students point out on a world map their speculation about where the commodity is grown. This could be done using a world map of climates and information about the growing requirements for the food commodity. To facilitate this speculation the teacher could provide a stem such as:
Bananas must grow in a climate where it is warm all year round so I think bananas would grow _____ because ______.Use maps in atlases showing places where different crops are grown to verify speculations.Apples need to grow where there is a mild winter so the tree can have a period of rest so I think apples would grow _______ because ____.
Synthesize understandings about climate and food production in a paragraph or a poem. Incorporate relevant vocabulary such as tropical, temperate, polar, desert, frost free, and growing season.
Using a wall map of the world ask students to speculate on how they think bananas from Jamaica would reach us in Saskatchewan (use food examples with which you have been working). Trace a route on the map. Encourage use of appropriate vocabulary (names of oceans, rivers, ports). Repeat for other commodities and places.
Make connections between transportation routes, population distribution, and agricultural production. Using Nelson World Atlas, pp. 20 & 21, 36 & 37, 44 & 45 make connections among transportation routes, agricultural production, and population distribution. For example, in the polar and sub- polar areas of Canada and Asia there is little agriculture, sparse population, and few transportation routes.
Speculate on life without a variety of agricultural commodities. This could be accomplished through focused imaging followed by journal writing or small groups discussion.
Write a story about a food commodity and its travels either to or from your community. Model the process of combining fact and fiction by writing a class story first. Incorporate relevant vocabulary, using the names of places. Consult maps when planning the story. Write a play about the adventures of a food commodity.
Synthesize information about climate and production into a poem that incorporates relevant vocabulary. A poem such as "Alligator Pie" in Alligator Pie (ELA) could be used as a model for the writing of such a poem.
Food distribution
In this activity students experience the realities of food distribution in a variety of countries. Do this activity in a large area such as the gym. Use skipping ropes to mark off countries as follows:
Tell Group C that their government has decided that it prefers to grow crops and sell them to Country B. Take most of the peanuts from Country C.
Ask the following questions:
Food related projects
Plan and carry out activities such as:
(Integrate with science as it relates to climate and plant growth.)
Use Project Wild (Elm Sci) "Classroom Carrying Capacity" p. 150 and "Too Close for Comfort" p. 286.
Saskatchewan and Jilin
Introduce Saskatchewan's twin province in China, Jilin. Locate Jilin on a wall map of the world. Compare the size of Jilin to Saskatchewan. For your information Jilin has an area of 187,400 square kilometres. Saskatchewan has an area of 651,000 square kilometres. Jilin is roughly 1/6 the size of Saskatchewan. The population of Saskatchewan is about 1 million and the population of Jilin is about 24 million.
Do the following activities to develop understandings related to population density:
Here are some facts about agriculture in Jilin:
The teacher and students may wish to contact SaskTel, SaskPower, and Saskatchewan Wheat Pool to inquire about the current status of their projects in Jilin.
Jilin - some quick facts
The provinces of Saskatchewan and Jilin in the People's Republic of China established friendly provincial relations in 1984 to:
In the fall of 1993, officials from the city of Jilin visited Regina. An agreement was signed that included the promise of $5 million in design work to a consortium of five Regina engineering firms. The agreement would also bring trade to other parts of Saskatchewan. The agreement called for the purchase of purebred cattle, a study of the sale of potash for Chinese agriculture, and projects involving SaskTel, SaskPower, and the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool.
Profile of Jilin Province
By way of introduction, the teacher may choose to do some of the following:
Adrianne Paavo grew up in Birsay, Saskatchewan. She went to a small school in the town. After the school closed, she took a bus to the school in Lucky Lake.
When she was in Grade 7 or 8, she had a Science teacher who had worked with CUSO in Africa. She thought that was a neat thing to do. She thought she would like to do that some day. That dream came true.
When Adrianne was in school, she was involved in the Saskatchewan Youth Parliament for six years. One year she was elected as Premier. She was the second woman to be premier of Youth Parliament. This was an important experience for her. At first she found it very hard to get up and speak in front of the group. But she gradually gained confidence. Also, in her home town she sometimes felt like a weirdo or misfit because she often seemed to have different interests than her classmates. Youth Parliament gave her a chance to be with other students from across the province and Canada who had the same interests she did. She was not so weird after all!
After high school, she went to the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. In her spare time, she wrote articles for the student newspaper and also worked as a volunteer with the student radio station.
After university she applied to teach in Japan. She got a job teaching English in a school in Hiroshima. Hiroshima is where the bomb was dropped in World War II. The school was very close to a place where there are some ruins from the war. A park has been built around the ruins. The park is called Peace Park. Adrianne was in Japan for one year.
Three years later her dream to work in Africa came true. How did that happen? After she came back from Japan, she had some contacts with the Grain Services Union. People who work in grain elevators belong to this union. The union in Saskatchewan has a sister union in Mozambique. The union here has worked hard to improve the safety of its workers. The union here wanted to help improve the safety of the workers in Mozambique. That's where Adrianne came in.
First she had to learn Portuguese. She took a two week crash course. Then she was off to Mozambique.
What was her job? She went to different places that process foods, like bakeries, canning places, places where grain is ground into flour. Here she helped the workers organize safety committees. She was sometimes tempted to tell them what to do, but she didn't. That just would not work. She had to learn to listen a lot. She was there to help them gain confidence and skills to identify the problems and work together to find solutions.
A huge bakery in a large city is an example of what a safety committee could do. At one end of the bakery, the dough is mixed and put into pans. The pans are then placed on a conveyor belt. The belt takes the pans with the dough slowly through a huge oven. At the other end of the belt, workers take the baked loaves out of the oven and package them. What is the problem? The workers taking the loaves out of the oven always get a blast of heat. Mozambique has very hot weather. This additional heat makes the workers sweat all day. They find the job very tiring and uncomfortable. So the committee goes to work on the problem. What do they decide? They have a wooden baffle (low wall) built that helps absorb some of the heat from the oven. Then they have another conveyor belt built where the baked loaves of bread fall and take them to a packing area. In this way, the packers can be away from the oven where it is not so hot. The example actually happened while Adrianne was there. It was a simple solution that made a big difference to workers.
Mozambique is a poor country. There is not much money. But sometimes it doesn't cost much to make a big difference.
What did she learn from her experiences in Mozambique? Lots of things.
She learned that there are many capable, intelligent people there, just as there are in this country. They want their children to be safe and healthy, they want to raise their crops, they want to work and be useful. The colour of your skin or where you live doesn't make any difference. People have the same needs and dreams no matter who you are or where you live.
She found it hard when every day she saw people who were very poor. "Poverty," she says, "can rob you of your dignity and your childhood." She often saw children looking for things to steal or selling bubble gum, not for spending money, but to help keep themselves and their families alive.
There has been war in Mozambique for some time. Schools destroyed, teachers killed, millions of people have left their homes for a safer place to live. The few children who can go to schools that are left, go in shifts - one group in the morning, another in the afternoon. Many children can't go to school because their families don't have the money to pay the small fee. But they don't get to stay home and watch tv, they have to work to support their families. The people want to go to school, they want to learn. Even the adults who can, study on weekends and evenings to try to improve their lives.
She often wondered about fairness. Why are some people starving when others have so much? Is it a fluke that one person is born into a rich family and another is born into a poor one? When Adrianne came home from Mozambique, walking into a supermarket really bothered her. She thought, "Is the world really a better place because we have 200 different breakfast cereals to choose from? Is it fair that some of my friends in Africa think they are lucky to have a bowl of rice once a day?"
After all her travels and adventures, what does Adrianne want to do now? "I want to stay in Saskatchewan for awhile. I'm a part of this place, this place is part of me."
"You know," Adrianne said, "When I was growing up in Birsay, I had the idea that if you want to be the best at something, you have to move to Toronto or some other big city. But that just is not true. You can be the best right here. What happens here is just as important as what happens anywhere else. And this province has amazing people who can do amazing things."
The people right here in this province can do amazing things to make a difference in Saskatchewan, and also to make a difference in Mozambique.
By way of following up the story, the teacher may choose of some of the following:
Use guided inquiry to have the students discover the implications of importing food. Consider the monetary costs of transportation and refrigeration. Consider the cost to the environment as resources are used and the air and oceans are polluted. Summarize the ideas on a flow chart.
Bias, stereotyping
Use the study of agricultural production to develop understandings about stereotype, assumption, bias, and point of view. A statement such as, "Wheat is grown in Saskatchewan," may leave the impression that Saskatchewan is the only place where wheat is grown. Use instead, "Saskatchewan is one of the places where wheat is grown." Similarly, the statement, "Saskatchewan farmers grow wheat," may leave the impression that wheat is the only crop grown by Saskatchewan farmers. Use instead, "Wheat is one of the crops grown by Saskatchewan farmers." Find out what assumptions and biases students may have regarding agricultural products. Help students understand how stereotype, assumptions, bias and point of view work and practise skills to counter bias. Help students identify stereotypical attitudes in what they hear and read. Share what they find with the class. Make connections between stereotypical attitudes towards agricultural products and practices and similar attitudes towards people and groups of people.
Hunger Note: Teachers should be aware that some of the children in their classrooms may have daily experiences with hunger and have very few choices when it comes to eating. Activities may be adapted to suit specific situations.
Make the problem of hunger real for the students by asking them to tell about times they were hungry and how they felt. Write in their journals about times they were hungry and how they felt.
Distinguish between being hungry and being malnourished.
Create a situation in which some of the students experience plenty and others experience scarcity. Use this activity to develop understandings of some issues regarding food supply and distribution. Have students reflect upon these issues through journal writing or small group discussion. Provide the following stem:
Some people are hungry because ______.
Learn about hunger locally and provincially. Do issues of hunger relate only to people far away? Collect newspaper articles, visit a food bank, invite a guest speaker into the classroom, write letters, and make phone calls.
Learn about malnutrition and how the decisions we make about what we eat will affect our health. Make connections with issues in health care, such as lack of facilities and funding or lack of education about nutritional issues.
Use current events to guide the students in making connections between what
they are learning about hunger and malnutrition and what is occurring locally
and globally.
Help the students make the connection between making wise choices about their own eating habits and being a good citizen. Use a decision making model and establish an action plan for eating healthy foods. The class establishes a list of objectives. Individual students choose objectives and work towards meeting those objectives. Enter chosen objectives on a template and assess progress at given intervals.