Wasted Food

Each year, the food we waste could feed millions of people and costs the North American economy billions of dollars.  We also waste millions of tons of fertilizer each year on growing food never eaten, not to mention the millions of hectares of natural habitat lost to farmland dedicated to growing wasted food.  Wasted food is a huge issue in the US and in many parts of the world.  Use the resources below to educate and inspire students and communities to get involved in addressing the wasted food issue and help save our planet.

Brittany Grouge
Guidelines:
  • Emphasis on skills building
  • Action orientation
  • Usability

This is an outstanding educational resource for a wide age range of students in formal or non-formal settings. The Kids’ Action Kit is designed for ages 5-13, and the Youth Action Kit for ages 14-25. The activities allow students to get hands-on with food waste to learn how to reduce it on a personal level, but also incorporate learning from a variety of viewpoints, and include traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) from indigenous communities across North America. This action kit is also interactive, incentivizing students to complete activities by awarding badges at specific milestones, encouraging individual inquiry and synthesis of complex concepts related to food waste through this reward system.

Freshly harvested squash, beets, carrots, and turnips.
Resource

Food Matters Action Kit

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), an intergovernmental organization established by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States under the auspices of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, developed the Food Matters Action Kit to help educators and youth address the important issue of wasted food in the three countries. The toolkit is loaded with resources and hands-on activities to inspire youth of all ages to prevent food waste in their daily lives. Activities are designed for ages 5-25 and encourage youth to start making a difference right now to prevent food waste by addressing food waste from farm to fork.

Resource Category:

Website, Classroom, Activity, Lesson Plan
Brittany Grouge
Guidelines:
  • Fairness and accuracy
  • Depth
  • Action orientation

This resource provides a great foundation to explore the issues surrounding food waste in the US. Particularly, educators can obtain a policy point-of-view to incorporate into lesson plans, as well as a proposed hierarchy that many organizations use in real time to manage food to prevent waste and the best practices to manage waste on different scales. Interactive portions of this website can allow students to explore excess food opportunities in the US, including potential generators and recipients of excess food and how excess food can be used to reduce hunger in the US.

Graphic of the U.S. EPA's Food Recovery Hierarchy
Resource

Sustainable Management of Food

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s work to promote innovation and highlight the value and management of food as an asset is featured in this educational resource. Building on the concept of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle," this resource highlights the impacts of the food we waste in the US. The site is broken into simple sections on: Understanding the Issues; What Businesses, Institutions, and Other Organizations Can Do; and What Individuals Can Do. A highlight of the last section is the Food: Too Good to Waste Implementation Guide and Tookit which is designed to teach local governments and community organizations how to implement a Food: Too Good to Waste campaign in their community.

Resource Category:

Website
Organization: 
Brittany Grouge
Guidelines:
  • Fairness and accuracy
  • Depth
  • Emphasis on skills building
  • Action orientation
  • Instructional soundness
  • Usability

Each lesson plan includes not only the curriculum, but also everything needed to promote student inquiry, including classroom activities. Each lesson plan includes assessments educators can use to evaluate students’ comprehension of key concepts. Although the lesson plans are geared towards K-5 students, the resources for each lesson plan are listed, making these lesson plans easily customizable for the needs of each classroom. Supplemental links are included on the page to provide additional information and activities for students.

Picture of kid's arms with watering cans watering a raised bed school garden.
Resource

Nature of Teaching: Food Waste Curriculum

Moderator Endorsed: K-12 EE

Perdue University’s College of Agriculture Nature of Teaching Program developed this curriculum to help educators introduce their students to key concepts of food waste. Lesson plans are divided into the following units: Food Waste and Natural Resources, Food Waste and the Environment, What a Waste of Food! School Gardens, Food Waste Solutions, and Transporting Food Waste. Each unit contains one or more lesson plans that contain Common Core English/Language Arts, Math, and Next Generation Science Standards. Most lessons are K-5, but some include middle school and high school standards, and many can be scaled up.

Resource Category:

Website
Brittany Grouge
Guidelines:
  • Fairness and accuracy
  • Depth

This organization offers an outstanding compilation of resources, which span a wide breadth of topics related to food waste. Including resources from a diverse array of organizations and agencies provides a look at food waste from multiple viewpoints and presents information on the different ways that excess food can be managed from both an industry and a policy standpoint. Whether an educator is looking for broader foundational material for a lesson plan or more in-depth information, this resource is a great place to start!

Resource

Food Waste Reduction Alliance (FWRA) Resources

The Food Waste Reduction Alliance (FWRA) is an industry-led initiative focused on reducing food waste by increasing food donation and sending unavoidable food waste to productive use (energy, composting) and away from landfills. FWRA is made up of Consumer Brands Association, FMI – The Food Industry Association, and the National Restaurant Association. FWRA is focused on sources of excess food from U.S. food manufacturing and distribution operations and provides information about different aspects of food waste and its management compiled from a variety of governmental, non-governmental, and nonprofit sources. While these resources are not grade-specific, the amount of information compiled here makes this a valuable resource for educators crafting lesson plans for students across a wide age range.

Resource Category:

Website