World food (7-11 Years)

Activity 1 - Name the source of ingredients found in meals.

In the 5-7 years, Where food comes from area of the website, the session looked at different foods and whether its plant or animal source. You may find it useful to use the resources in the Plant or animal? session to recap with children where a range of individual food items originate, before moving onto the session below which focuses on the origins of dishes and meals.

Ask the children to give an example of a meal they have eaten recently. They could draw these on the board or use the Where is my meal from? worksheet. 

Question the children about where the different parts of the meal comes from. Some children might start with the answers ‘supermarket’ or ‘bakery’. While this is correct, it is the first stage of tracing the food back to its origins. Encourage the children to go as far back as they can with the origin of each ingredient, for example:

• toast is made from bread, bread is made from flour, flour is made from the plant called wheat (it is milled);
• milk is from a dairy cow;
• apple juice is from an apple which grows on a tree;
• a tomato is a fruit which grows on a plant;
• mashed potato is made from potatoes (a plant) which grow under the ground.

Help the children to comprehend that all our food has to be produced for us. Plants have to be grown and animals have to reared or caught.

Activity 2 - Name and locate food which is produced in the UK.

Using the UK Food cards and UK Food labels cards, ask the children to name the food and suggest where in the UK it might come from. Read the label to reveal the answer and ask for help locating the place on a UK map, a map where counties are shown would be best. Repeat this twice more. 

Share the UK Food cards and UK Food labels cards among the children and hand them a UK Food map worksheet. Explain that they need to look at each food and read the label to find out where it is produced. They will then need to use a map to find out where the place is located in the UK.  Finally, they can draw the food on their worksheet and use an arrow to show where in the UK it comes from.  The children should repeat this with all the foods.

Check the children’s work with them. 

As an extension, challenge the children to find food which are produced locally and add these to their worksheet.

Activity 3 - Name and locate food which is produced outside the UK.

Ask the children to work in small groups and write a list of food they think are produced in a country outside the UK.  Ask the children to jot down which country they think these foods come from. Discuss the children’s ideas and ask them to explain why they think these foods are produced outside the UK.

Reveal a display of five foods produced in different countries outside the UK (or use the World food cards and, later in the session, the World food labels). 

Examples of possible food to include:

• Rice, Plantain and Yam;
• Feta cheese and Buffalo mozzarella cheese;
• Chick peas;
• Hoki (a type of fish);
• Orange, Lemon, Banana, Watermelon, Mango, Pawpaw and Coconut;
• Kohlrabi;
• Coffee beans.

Remove or conceal the names of the food and their countries of origin before the task, write these clearly on labels and pin them up randomly for the children to see. Ask the children to help you place the name and origin labels by each food.  Ask the children to help you find the countries on a world map and discuss why each food might be produced in a certain country, e.g. climate, weather.

Ask the children to work in pairs or small groups to find out more about the food discussed and the food they listed at the beginning of the lesson.  Ask them to investigate the following:

• How they are produced;
• Why these foods are not produced in the UK, e.g. climate, soil condition, cost.
• The basic requirements of all plants and all animals regardless of where they are produced.

The children can present this information as a booklet, poster or presentation to tie the work into other curriculum areas. A large world map display could be created highlighting food from the UK and around the world.

Further activities

• Find out what produce grows locally and organise a Farm Visit where children can learn about the conditions needed to produce different food. 
• Start growing activities in school to help children learn more about seasonal produce and growing conditions, e g. potatoes, lettuces, herbs, tomatoes. The children could keep a record of the plants’ growth; this could be written or photographic. Primary schools can register for the Grow Your Own Potato scheme.
• Challenge children to find out how food travels to the UK from other countries.

Reviewed 28.11.23