August through October in 8th Grade: The Food Unit

Through the "8th Grade Portal" way back on August 26!

It hardly seems apt to "welcome" you to 8th grade, since we've been in school for two months already, so instead I welcome you to the 8th grade blog! This year, we will be doing our best to post a new blog post every two weeks or so. The top of the month will feature blogs by me and/or Reggie, focusing on our thematic units, class trips, and projects going on in specific Science, Math, Humanities, and Writing classes. The mid-month posts will be written by various specialists, including Erika (PE and Enhancement), Megan (music), Cara (art), Sean (tech), Nira (life skills), Nancy (French), and Calysta (Spanish). 

Please take some time to subscribe to this blog (there's a link on the righthand side of the screen) so that you get automatic emails every time the blog is updated. You can also use the links on the righthand sidebar to access our full photo albums (the blog will only include a few highlights), our daily schedule, and upcoming dates.

This first blog post will likely be longer than usual, as we'll be recapping our thematic unit during the first couple of months of school! As you hopefully know by now, our first thematic unit of the year is the Food Unit. This year's focus for the Food Unit centers around exploring how we choose our food, and how we use scientific information to help us make those choices. This unit is student-led and inquiry-based, meaning we spend a great deal of time throughout the unit working with students to develop questions that they will then explore through various modes of learning, including hands-on projects and experiments, book- and Internet-research and writing, teacher-directed lessons, and immersion into topics through field trips and interviews with experts. 

We started the unit during the first week of school, when students planned, prepared, and then analyzed a lunch meal of their choice. They used these first meals as a jumping-off point for posing questions about the food system.

      

From there, we headed off to Wyoming for our fall Teton Trip, half of which focused on visiting food production facilities in the Teton Valley (460 Bread, a sheep ranch, Jackson Vertical Garden, and Cosmic Apple Farm), and half of which was devoted to team-building and outdoor skill development while backpacking and trying to stay warm and dry in the Alaska Basin. (See all photos in the Teton Trip Album by clicking here!)

First group at 460 Bread in Driggs, Idaho.

Ty is an amazingly generous baker and business owner!

Vertical Harvest in Jackson, WY

High Ropes course in Jackson, WY

Meredith's sheep ranch in Alta, WY

Cosmic Apple farm in Victor, ID

Alaska Basin backpacking group

Dinner in the big group camp

   Upon our return, students began exploring the questions that they generated related to food and wrote research papers focused on one specific question of personal interest. These papers ranged in topic from diabetes to genetic modification and everywhere in between. During this time, students also began designing and conducting food experiments both to answer additional questions about food and to learn about how to develop testable questions and high quality scientific experiments.

Tyler's spice experiment

Isabelle and Alex's blind taste test

Next, students completed individual projects to more fully explore questions about food. Again, student projects varied widely in scope and form. We had students grind their own flour and interview Brett Stevenson, a local farmer who recently opened a commercial flour mill. Some students chose to conduct "America's Test Kitchen" style experiments to try to make the "ideal" version of a food. Some students sent out surveys to students in other states and countries to gain a better understanding of how our diets differ by region. A number of students made documentary films and podcasts, exploring everything from the history and mission of our school's Cutthroat Cafe lunch program to the human digestive process. Students then presented their projects to the class, and their peers took notes on and asked questions about their topics.

Timeline of agricultural history

More timeline work

  

Most recently, students have been learning about the history of industrialized agriculture and are examining some of the costs and benefits of producing food in this way. In addition to in-class readings and presentations, students traveled this past Monday to various food production facilities throughout the Wood River Valley and Twin Falls to explore questions about how we produce and access food in our communities. One group of students visited Bigwood Bread, a local flour mill, and Kraay's Market and Garden to see and hear about some of our local food vendors, while the other half of the class visited the Independent Meat Company in Twin Falls and the MART Produce potato storage and distribution facility in Rupert. 

Tour of Bigwood Bread with Carly

Kale at Kraay's 

Watching Ap the dog chase a falcon at Kraay's with Sherry

Tasting nasturtium flowers. Spicy!

The mill at Hillside Grain with Brett Stevenson

   
In the next few weeks, we will come back together to synthesize some of the learning students have done about problems that they identify in the food system and will plan a final event that aims to solve some of those problems on a local level. Stay tuned for information about this final event. We believe that the best learning culminates with a public celebration of knowledge, so our final event will certainly involve an invitation to all parents and interested community members!

Beautiful produce bags that we helped Sherry Kraay put together.