Albuquerque's
Environmental StoryAlbuquerque's
Environmental StoryTake a trip to a supermarket, or bring to school a variety of cans, jars, and packages of food. Read labels to find out what ingredients they contain.
Approximately what percentage of the cans, jars, and packages examined contained some food additives?
Which additives were found most often?
Why are additives used?
What objections are raised to the use of additives in foods? What information can be found to support these objections?
Watch children's television programs for three or four days. Keep a record of the breakfast cereals which sponsor them.
How long is each commercial? How many commercials are shown on one program?
What methods do the commercials use to sell their products? Are any of the commercials misleading in the way they present their products? If so, how?
Read the labels of the cereals which sponsor these programs. How many of them have high nutritional value? How many of them have large concentrations of sugar? How many have artificial coloring or flavoring? Other additives?
What needs and wants are appealed to besides nutrition? What images of Me are being sold?
Is there any racial or gender stereotyping?
How many children in the class eat any of the cereals advertised? Why do they eat them?
Conduct a Snack A-B-C's. On successive days, have children bring in snacks which begin with different letters of the alphabet: Monday - apples, apricots, angel cake; Tuesday - Twinkies, Tootsie rolls, tangerines, etc.
Which of these snacks are nourishing as well as tasty to eat? Which can be considered empty calories or junk food?
What kinds of good tasting and nutritious snacks can the class make in school? See Diet for a Small Planet, a vegetarian cookbook, for recipes.
Consult a health education book to find out what the different food nutrients do for the body. Prepare a chart similar to the one below:
Nutrient
How the Body Used the Nutrient
Important Sources
protein
growth, repair of tissues
meat, fish, soybeans
fats
Do any of the foods in the third column come from outside the United States? Explain.
Name any locally grown foods which are important sources of nutrients.
What are the advantages of eating locally grown foods?
Are any of the foods in the third column especially popular with the class? Especially unpopular? Why?
Use the Yellow pages of the Albuquerque phone book and the local newspaper to determine the number of eating places there are in town. Cut out restaurant advertisements. Make a color key of the different nationalities represented by the restaurants and their specialties. Fashion a collage of the ads on brown paper.
What percentage of the eating places are fast food restaurants?
How many health food restaurants are there? What kinds of foods are served at a health food restaurant? How many students have ever eaten in one? Which of the foods did they like? What did they not like?
Tally the number of restaurants of different nationalities or ethnic groups: French, Mexican, Indian, Chinese, etc. Show results with bar graphs; use a computer spreadsheet to create. Which types of food do you like best?
Examine the sample daily diets prepared by the class to see how much of our protein comes from meat. Compare our eating habits with those of people in the densely populated, developing nations. Use cookbooks and food studies to find out.
What does the phrase eating high on the food pyramid mean? Do people in the over populated, developing nations eat high on the food pyramid? Why? Do we? Why?
How much energy is lost at each level of the food chain? (About 10 percent.) What are some of the ways energy is lost in the food chain?
Using the l0 percent rule, how many kilograms of beef would be necessary to produce one kilogram of human protein? How many kilograms of corn would be needed to give 10 kilograms of beef?
What is the recommended ration of grazing livestock per acre in the rangeland outside of Albuquerque? What happens when land is overgrazed? To what extent has this happened around Albuquerque? How could the same land be used to provide more food?
What foods could we eat `lower on the food pyramid and still derive the protein we need? Which of these foods do you like? Which foods do you dislike? What are the main reasons for liking or disliking foods? Can people's eating preferences be changed? How?
Find out from relatives or from books what sample diets were like for Albuquerque's three major cultures a generation or two ago.
What determined the types of foods generally eaten at that time?
Were the average diets nutritious and well balanced? If not, what types of food were lacking?
What types were overused?
Were these diets high or low on the food pyramid?
How do the foods served in our homes now compare with those of the past?
If there are differences, what might explain them?
What role does advertising play? The mass media? Closer communication among the different cuItures?
There are many ways in which we hurt our inner environments, other than poor eating habits. Noise pollution is one example. Sounds are around us all the time. We become used to them, often not even hearing them. Sit for two minutes with eyes closed, and just listen for sounds. List those heard.
Which sounds could be considered noises? What is noise? What is excess noise?
How is noise measured?
How noisy is the school? Try to calculate the decibel level in the cafeteria, at a basketball game, in the school yard at lunch time .
At what point does radio, tape or CD player music become noise?
How can high decibel levels harm the body?
Trace your body. Put in various parts of the body, including the cardiovascular system, the respiratory system, and the digestive tract. Write labels describing some of the ways we hurt our inner environment. Draw arrows from the labels to the part of the inner environment harmed by the way we and the outer environment treat them. Work in teams of three students.
Half of the teams may use resources; half should guess. Compare results.
What parts of the inner environment are hurt by pollutants in the air? By smoking? By being near people who are smoking?
What parts are hurt by excessive noise?
What parts are hurt by junk foods and food additives?
What parts are hurt by water pollutants?
What parts are hurt by drugs?
(Up to Section IV, Back to Eye Opener Worksheet 11, On to Eye Opener Worksheet 12)