Judging Textbooks

Connecting wider economic, technological, or cultural trends to the everyday life of students can be a challenge. Food can serve as a course-long theme that helps students comprehend the essential connection between personal actions and national or international trends and develop skills of critical analysis. The author describes four activities that can be adapted to a wide variety of social studies courses and age groups. In the first two activities, students gain an understanding of their diet by exploring their food choices and the factors that affect those choices. These activities provide a point of comparison for subsequent units in which students examine food choices in a pre-industrial age and the impact of the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution on food production, preservation, and preparation.