If you’re teaching Social Studies this year, consider adding an extra ingredient to the meat of the content your students will be consuming. Toss in some fresh information about about food. Why? Food is a relevant part of each learner’s life in and out of the classroom. The topic is meaningful to just about everyone–administrators, educators, community members, and parents, included. People like talking about

• things to eat
• how foods are prepared
• how they taste
• why certain meals are more important than others
• how edibles are used as a reflection of culture and beliefs
• who discovered a dish, and so on.

More importantly, when pupils encounter information that is significant to them, they tend to pay attention and retain the information for longer periods of time. By teaching Social Studies within a culinary context, chances are students will associate the content along with the food-related facts. One more reason to consider adding food to the mental menu is that the topic also makes it possible for educators to integrate technology in a novel and useful manner.

For example, an engaging Social Studies teacher might introduce a concept–say explorers–and elicit a few essential questions from students, questions such as…

• What causes people to want to explore the unknown?
• What is the most important thing people accomplish through exploration?
• What is the most important trait for being a successful explorer?
• Who is history’s most important explorer?
• Who changes more–cultures that are “discovered” by explorers or explorers that have discovered new cultures?

In order to add relevancy to the concept, the teacher might also ask food related-questions such as…

• What kinds of foods were being consumed by humans at this point in history?
• What new foods were discovered when ___ found ___?
• Who had better (tastier, healthier, et cetera) foods in their diet–the explorer or the people the explorer met?
• How did food change the way these people behaved?
• Which foods, now commonly consumed, would have benefited an early explorer?
• In what ways has food changed the practice of exploration or the course of human history?
• What types of technology existed to help these people prepare and preserve their food?

To assist students with their own exploration of these and other questions, the instructor could suggest that learner use the following web-based resources:

• Food Timeline, is an excellent, intriguing chronology of delicious information. Make sure to check out the assortment of teacher resources.
• Food History News is a snappy resource for delving into history’s pantry.
• The Anthropology of Food is a webjournal that explorers the social sciences of food.
• Ponder the existential aspects of caloric glorification and cultural consciousness with PBS’s The Meaning of Food.
• The Social Issues Research Centre at Oxford has a heaping helping of tasty information via its Timeline of Dietary Advice.
• Knowing what’s in food that makes it necessary for consumption will shed light on why some cultures were (or are) more prepared for historical leaps forward. The World’s Healthiest Foods examines what’s good for fueling the body.
• Since we can’t eat with out a little assistance, the History of Eating Utensils is a helpful site.
• Food and Society has a collection of resources that may prove insightful to those exploring the link between what eat and how they behave.
• Key Ingredients will likely whet the appetite of students researching American eating habits.
• Slip in a spoonful of Science with MIT’s Kitchen Chemistry.
• Yes, someone let it cook too long. Drop by the Museum of Burnt Food for a glance.

By investigating the role of food in Social Studies, students and educators also have an opportunity to integrate technology in the form of spreadsheets. Using spreadsheets to calculate the energy requirements needed perform daily human activities (an Excel file is available for download via PubMed) will give pupils insight into the amount and kinds of food various people in assorted eras needed in order to survive. By incorporating a wee bit of Science and using cognitive tools such as spreadsheets and other resources in the classroom, students develop a clearer understanding of humans who lived along ago, humans, who like themselves, needed food for survival. Using free, collaborative resources such as Instacalc, Google Docs and Spreadsheets, and NCES Create A Graph site pupils can begin creating their own tools for analysis. Think about it: you can create students that hunger for learning. Make them crave your content.