Science Technology and Society
Debates surrounding Food in 7th and 8th grade
by Jacob Engle
February 25, 2008
Recently in Middle School science at Hope, the students have been researching some of the pro's and con's to applied science in society. 8th grade kicked off the research by studying the affects of Saturday morning advertisements of fatty foods on kids who are obese. Each student took one of several viewpoints and argued the point of that perspective. The viewpoints were those of a parent, a child, a nutritionist, a fatty food producer, and tv airtime producer. While the debate got really interesting at several points, we were all able to get along afterward! Of course, the viewpoint of the child was perhaps the easiest to argue, but boy can those kids argue!
In 7th grade we tackled the more serious topic of food irradiation. In groups of three, the students researched either all the positives or all the negatives of irradiating food. We addressed many naive assumptions and saw a lot of middle school minds changed because of our debate! It turns out that food irradiation is not as simple as it seems. Perhaps we will have some future organic farmers come out of this class!
Thanks for reading and stay connected until next time!
Mr.E
