Organic vs Non-Organic Foods

I don’t know about you, but I love teaching about topics that have two sides and sometimes a bit of controversy to them. Having read several articles about organic vs non-organic foods, I created this Organic vs Non-Organic Foods Dilemma where students had to research both sides of the argument and form a response that supported their position.

Part One

  • Introduce the Krackle family, sharing their views and dilemma regarding organic vs non-organic foods and which is better.
  • Explain that students will be researching answers to assigned prompts, citing sources, formulating and defending their own opinion to the Krackle family dilemma based on the information they discover.
  • I gave my students one class period to investigate the answers to the prompts and cite their sources. While they didn’t have to pick a position just yet on which was better, I did encourage them to think about it based on their results.
  • Place students in small groups and have them share and discuss their responses to each of the prompts. As they discuss, circulate or pop into their breakout room and listen to their responses.
  • Have each group share some ideas that their group discussed for each prompt as a whole class. This allows students to hear a variety of responses to each of the prompts before finalizing their position.

Part Two

  • Present students with the Newsela article “Clean & Dirty Vegetables” to read and then complete a Kahoot Game review around.
  • Afterwards, give students the Clean Fifteen or Dirty Dozen chart to complete. Students have to identify if the food listed is on the clean fifteen list or the dirty dozen list and they must highlight the food as either a fruit or a vegetable. Students could refer to the article and the internet for help, if necessary.

Part III

  • Finally, students had to write their reponse and defend their position using information they learned throughout their investigation, class discussion and article related activities. Because this is their opinion, I do not grade on the position they chose, but rather how they defended it in their written response.

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Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

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