Primary Source Exemplar: Nutrition and Human Rights

Created Feb. 7, 2024 by Joanna Schimizzi


Overview


Students return to their food maps and determine why they ate what they ate. Next, they do a close read of an abstract from a scientific article that connects the concept of taste to energy needs of the body. Finally, students will write a dietary recommendation based off energy needs of an individual. By exploring the motivation behind their own dietary choices and then evaluating the evolution of human taste, students will connect the struggle humans have with choosing appropriate foods in an environment with unlimited nutritional choices. Students will begin to evaluate whether taste or dietary need should be the driving motivation behind dietary choice.


Learning Objectives

Students will be able to evaluate the motivation for food consumption by comparing the evolution of taste to energy needs.

Sub-objectives

Analyze and determine the central idea of a scientific research paper by analyzing an abstract.

Write and a supported claim regarding modified diets.

Evaluate the need for energy consumption by comparing respiration rates.

Connect the struggle humans have with choosing appropriate foods in an environment with unlimited nutritional choices.

Evaluate whether taste or dietary need should be the driving motivation behind dietary choice.


Standards Addressed

CCSS R-1  Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts.

CCSS R-2 Determine the central ideas or conclusions of a text; provide an accurate summary of the text distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.

CCSS W-1 Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.

HS-LS4-4 Construct an explanation based on evidence for how natural selection leads to adaptation of populations.

HS-LS1-7 Use a model to illustrate that cellular respiration is a chemical process whereby the bonds of food molecules and oxygen molecules are broken and the bonds in new compounds are formed resulting in a net transfer of energy.


Instructional Approach


Introduce the Lesson

Introduce the lesson by returning to the students’ food webs and asking them to evaluate why they made their dietary choices. Probing questions should begin to explore whether nutritional needs, taste or ease of attainment/consumption were factors. Students should evaluate individual meal choices and overall daily consumption by completing a journal entry.


Interpreting Sources

1.  Introduce the abstract of the article, “Evolutionary perspective of food and human taste.” Remind students this is a review of primary sources, but only a section. The abstract is sufficient in introducing the topic, but the full article is found here.

2.  Ask students to read silently and annotate on the provided abstract. One of the large take-aways is how changing environmental conditions (shift from closed jungle to agrarian food sources) influenced the evolution of human taste. Students should be able to identify how specific taste preferences would benefit the human race.

3.  Provide the students with guiding questions to help them read through the text:

      • What words and phrases stand out to me as I read?
      • What is taste? What is the relationship between taste and nutrition?
      • How are taste preferences influenced by environment? How does taste help increase survival?
      • What does the author mean by “ecological niches”? How are these niches connected to the development of taste? What shift occurred as early hominoids shifted from the forests to the savannahs?
      • According to the article, how did early humans use their sense of taste? How does this compare to peoples’ use of their sense of taste today? How is taste beneficial to the human race?

After reading and annotating the text, support can be provided to help students build their literacy and ability to deeply analyze the text. Supports include exploring the meaning of each sentence and creating an organizational chart or paraphrasing parts of the texts to identify the central themes of the texts.


Vocabulary Task

Ask students to use annotations to identify vocabulary that is new or confusing to them. Prepare list of definitions or provide appropriate resources so students can explore the meaning of the vocabulary. Ask students to identify which words are essential to understanding the text such as “digest”, “repertoire”, “foraging”, “low food security” and “energy-dense foods”. By focusing on these Tier Two and Tier Three words, students will increase their vocabulary and build their content knowledge.

While the abstract is sufficient in introducing the topic, students may read the full for an even deeper analysis of taste. Depending on time and students’ needs, other sources that address the topic of taste are included in the unit’s source list. Texts #4 and 5 include:  “Evolutionary biology: The lost appetites” by Ewen Callaway, a Ted Talk by Japanese culinary artist Ayako Suwa, and a PBS website called “Tour the Tongue.” The video may be used to introduce the idea that humans used to use taste not as a sense of pleasure, but as an emotional experience. Suwa asks her audience to imagine what the first person who chose to eat a sea cucumber might have felt. Both the Callaway and PBS texts are wonderful sources that can accompany the abstract to “Evolutionary perspective of food and human taste”.


Direct Instruction

Energy Content of Carbohydrates and Lipids & Calculating a Dietary Recommendation

After analyzing the passage(s) on taste, explain why sugary and fatty foods are evolutionary programmed to be desired for their energy content. By providing direct instruction on energy content of carbohydrates and lipids, students can identify these foods as necessary for when energy needs are high. Also, introduce or review how energy is obtained through respiration reactions breaking down the chemical bonds of carbohydrates and lipids.

As part of the direct instruction, model how different energy outputs (running or walking) require different energy inputs, and how nutrition and taste are connected to this process. Model writing a claim of a dietary recommendation based on the energy requirements (metabolism) of a person. Consider choosing a professional athlete as a model.


Guided Practice – Writing Claims

1.  In groups or pairs, students construct a day’s worth of dietary recommendations (probably 3 meals and snacks) for both an active person and a sedentary person. To help illustrate this point, the teacher can provide examples of these two different people with different metabolic needs (Michael Phelps and a bank teller). By using different cases, the class should create very different suggestions that are justified by both evolutionary taste interests and energy needs. Students should support these claims with evidence from ecological efficiency data, evolutionary taste trends and energy needs. The data provided in the previous lesson and this should be directly referenced.

2.  To link their content knowledge to the overarching concept of diet as a human right, students can next write a claim that connects the struggle humans have with choosing appropriate foods in an environment with unlimited nutritional choices. Finally, students write a claim that evaluates whether taste or dietary need should be the driving motivation behind dietary choice.

The creation of a rubric would help guide students in formulating their claims. The resulting recommendations could be written, spoken or recorded.

3.  Groups should then switch and evaluate or use a gallery crawl to give feedback to the dietary recommendations. After the peer-evaluation, groups should make corrections to their recommendations.

Assessment

Students will have:

    • Annotated texts and addressed guiding questions, and created an organizational chart or paraphrase that identifies the central themes of the texts.

    • Created dietary recommendations for two individuals with different metabolic needs. These recommendations will need to be clear and specific in order to provide direct dietary advice.

    • Provided peer-feedback and self-reflections on their recommendations.

    • Written three separate claims about that relate food choices to energy needs of the body.

Given these activities, the teacher can:

    • Provide feedback to students as they analyze their own food webs to ensure students are questioning their food choices.

    • Provide feedback to students as they read and analyze the abstract/full article, including probing questions such as “Why are certain foods more desirable than others?”

    • Provide feedback to students as they craft recommendations for the two sample diets.

    • Monitor student feedback among the groups as they review each others’ statements about dietary recommendations.


Adaptations

    • Instead of the formal abstract, teachers can use a slightly more accessible text written more as a story - “Evolutionary Biology - The Lost Appetities.”

    • Teachers can jigsaw the creation of diets so that individuals or groups are only creating one diet recommendation.


Supports

    • Teachers can provide the article or a list of difficult vocabulary to students prior to class to allow them time to explore the content with support from other adults or technology.

    • Student interest could be cultivated by watching a TED talk video on pufferfish or this PBS source on “Tour the Tongue.” The TED talk is an great intro and the Tour the Tongue gives specific content knowledge on the structure of taste.

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