Rethinking Food Waste by Educated Choices Program makes teaching about sustainability and food waste both engaging and educational. With a comprehensive lesson plan, video resources, and interactive activities, teachers have everything they need to spark meaningful conversations about food waste and its environmental impacts. Plus, it’s free, which is a huge bonus for teachers and schools.
To see how this program works in a real classroom, we asked environmental educator and teacher Christine Arsenis to try out the Rethinking Food Waste lesson with her middle-grade environmental club. Here’s her Teacher Picks review and why she recommends this program for other educators.
Who is the program a good fit for?
I’m in New Jersey and used the Rethinking Food Waste program with my 7th and 8th graders (kids 12 to 14 years old) in my environmental club. As a whole, the lesson package is well suited for all students ages 12 and up (7th grade and up).
Does this product align with curriculum standards?
My school uses NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards) for our district. I know this lesson met standards of both Sustainability and Natural Resources and Their Management. (You can also find all the standards listed out for all of their programs right here.)
How did you use the Rethinking Food Waste program in your classroom?
We used the lesson-created video about food waste, the quiz, and one of the lesson plans that comes with the materials. We also completed some of the suggested activities. For instance, my students reinforced key concepts from the video by creating vertical displays of their knowledge. The activities aligned well with our club’s mission of collecting breakfast each day from our homerooms to donate to a local church’s food pantry.
How did your students like Rethinking Food Waste?
Overall, my students were fairly impressed with Rethinking Food Waste. The part they enjoyed the most was working with the guided practice from the Day 2 lesson where they were asked to find ways to define environmental impacts, stages of the food supply chain, and sustainable choices.
To help my students start their thinking process, I put them into three groups. Each group focused on one of three topics— the environmental impact of food waste, the stages of the food supply chain, or sustainable choices to reduce food waste locally, statewide, and nationally.
My students working together to bounce ideas off each other, not only from the video but also their own personal experiences, was fantastic. It made the video content seem more realistic and applicable to daily life.
Would you say this is an easy program for teachers to implement?
All the materials as well as the video from the Educated Choices Program library are very intuitive. The videos are very clear. They provide a great summary portion toward the end to wrap up ideas and help students remember the contents of the video. I appreciate how the lesson guides are easy to follow and provide a complete set for educators who are looking to supplement their curriculum with relevant information.
What makes this program unique?
I like the versatility among different types of educators. The whole learning package, from the video to the guided notes and everything in between, provides educators with almost a whole week’s lessons for their students.
I appreciated the clarity of the Educated Choices Program’s lesson guides and the quality of each lesson day. I also liked that educators have the flexibility to add their own flair to each lesson package.
How does it save you time or make teaching easier?
Having a plan to follow through with each lesson package is fantastic. These plans, as well as the corresponding standards they cover, make this easy for teachers of all backgrounds to use with their students. I could see it working for a health or physical education class, an economics class, a science class, and a family and consumer science class. Educated Choices Program learning packages really do cater to a wide variety of educators.
How do you plan to use the Educated Choices programs again in the future?
As a 7th-grade science teacher, one of our three main topics includes environmental science, which is our final unit for the school year. While every 7th-grade student completes a culminating project in late May known as NatureFest, where they conduct a research project about an organism or biome native to New Jersey, we do not get to spend a lot of time thinking about food and agriculture. I could see my students enjoying other programs through Educated Choices, such as Future of Food, The Planet and Our Plates, and Growing Community Roots. These topics emphasize a global perspective while helping teachers connect them to local and statewide levels. These packages could help spur student thinking for their NatureFest projects.
Did your students have any aha moments, and if so, what were they?
My students were surprised to see how much of our food comes from other countries/continents. For instance, India is the country that produces the most dairy cows and products. It made them want to check their food labels more or companies they gravitate toward for food and snacks to see their origin of production.
How do you think the program will make students look at food waste differently in the future?
My club students run a program where we collect unopened breakfast items during homeroom. Now that my students understand food waste and its impact on our local and global community, we can put their knowledge into action. We’ll apply what they’ve learned to our daily breakfast collection and track how our school has reduced food waste.
Take a look at Christine’s review of this free program in the classroom through this video.
Teacher Picks is a sponsored program available from We Are Teachers. All opinions shared in the review are honest and based on the teacher’s direct experience. To learn more about our guidelines and review process, click here.