After talking with Angela Koster-Sorenson about her interactive food safety activities at a recent conference in Minnesota, I was excited to feature her! In this Food Safety & Sanitation unit, students learn the need for proper safety and sanitation practices in food preparation, food service and food storage to prevent food contamination, bacterial growth and illness in a variety of ways. Read on to learn more.

Materials

• iPad or Laptop
• Projector & Screen
• Play-dough (affiliate link)
• Colored Stickers (affiliate link)
• Index Cards (affiliate link)
• Balls (affiliate link)

Activities

• Teacher Note: Angela is on a block schedule so this unit typically takes 1.5 hours to teach.
• Angela begins with a teacher lead slideshow with students filling out a  study guide. The unit begins with a focus on bacteria types: Helpful, Harmless, Undesirable and Pathogens.
• Once students understand the different types of bacteria, they research a recent food recall caused by a pathogen that has been in the new in the last year or two and share it with the class.
• Students then learn how bacteria grow and multiply; dividing every 15 to 30 minutes. To illustrate this concept, Angela divides the students into small groups of 3 or 4 students (4 works best) where they complete the Bacterial Division Activity. Videos of this activity can be found below.
• In the Bacterial Division Activity, groups are given a can of play-dough. The play dough is a BACTERIUM and it will begin to grow and divide every 30 “minutes” (time lapse=every 30 seconds). Upon the teacher’s command, the students should divide the play dough ball into 2. After 30 “minutes”(seconds), the teacher will say divide and the students should break each piece of play dough in half. This will continue for 4 “hours”(minutes). At the end of the 4 “hours” (minutes) the students will count the number of BACTERIA that they have. Students share their numbers and discuss follow-up questions as a class.
• The students then complete the BACTERIA MATH assignment to show their understanding either in class or as homework.
• Students learn about FATTOM, the acronym that represents the conditions needed for bacteria to grow and multiply.
• After hiding colored stickers throughout the classroom in locations bacteria may hide, students participate in a Bacteria Scavenger Hunt where they hunt for one or two stickers/bacteria. After finding the stickers, students place them on an index card and record where they found it. For older students, the scavenger hunt may be replaced with actually taking bacteria samples from around the classroom and bacteria can be grown in petri dishes. Key takeaway is that bacteria can be found EVERYWHERE! Students then identify the type of bacteria they found.
• To illustrate cross contamination, students play the Cross Contamination Game, with a “bacterium” ball in a controlled environment. At first, students toss a “bacterium” ball to class members around the room silently for 1 minute. At the end of 1 minute, instruct the students that the ball must still move around the room, from one student to another, but that they may NOT toss/throw it. This will last for 2 minutes. Students need to be creative! At the end of the game students record how they creatively moved the ball. Explain to students that bacteria can’t actually move. They need help to move from one place to another. We call this cross contamination.
• Finally, discuss how cross contamination can occur and how it can be prevented and why food safety and sanitation practices are so important.
• Note:  If you would like a KEY to the student study guide, please send me an email and I will share it with you. Due to student cheating, I no longer share them on the post.

Attachments

• Food Safety & Sanitation Slide Deck (please make a copy if you wish to edit: go to file and click make a copy and it’s yours.)
• Facts About Bacteria Study Guide (please make a copy if you wish to edit: go to file and click make a copy and it’s yours.)
• Videos of Bacterial Division Activity