Food for thought

A couple of recent additions to the Doucette Library’s collection made me realize the number of books that are in the library relating food to social issues and current events.  What a great way to explore contemporary issues and something we can all relate to in an interdisciplinary way, if we wanted to.

Below I’ve created a list and grouped books according to what they focus on.  Click on the titles of the books to go to the library’s catalogue to read a short summary about the exact content.

  

Global Food Issues (such as access, international trade, etc.)

-Chocolate: Sweet Science and Dark Secrets of the World’s Favorite Treat by Kay Frydenborg (Gr.6-10)

 -Down to Earth: How Kids Help Feed the World by Nutritional Issues (Gr.3-6)

Sugar Changed the World: a Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom and Science by Marc Aronson (Gr.4-7)

Growing Food (eg. where does it come from)

-Before We Eat: From Farm to Table by Pat Brisson (Gr.K-2)

-Eat Up!: an Infographic Exploration of Food by Antonia Banyard (Gr. 4-7)

-The Children's Garden: Growing Food in the City by Carole Schaefer (Gr.K-2)

-Potatoes on Roof tops: Farming in the City by Hadley Dyer (Gr.4-8)

History and Culture

-Fifty Foods that Changed the Course of History by Bill Price (Gr.10 and up)

-Footprints: the Story of What We Eat by Paula Ayer (Gr. 6 and up)

-Man Eating Bugs: the Art and Science of Eating Insects by Peter Menzel (Gr.8 and up)

 -What's for Lunch?: How Schoolchildren Eat Around the World by Andrea Curtis (Gr.3-6)

-What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets by Peter Menzel (Gr.8 and up)

Issues and Events we hear about in the news (organic foods, eating locally produced food)

-Eating Local by Laura Perdew (Gr.4-7)

 -Meatless?: a Fresh Look at What We Eat by Sarah Elton (Gr.3-7)

-Hijacked: How Your Brain is Fooled by Food by David Kessler (Gr.7 and up)

-The Dorito Effect: the Surprising New Truth About Food and Flavor by Mark Schatzker (Gr.10 and up)

These books become an interesting way to discuss health issues, current events, science, history. Tie these books to some of the kits also available in the Doucette Library like the "How Much Fat?" kits that looks at the quantity of fat found in common foods, "How Much Sugar?" kit, also showing us in a very visual way how much sugar we consume. There's great potential for developing an interdisciplinary unit about a subject that is relevant and important for all of us.

Can you ever have too much squid?

I recently mentioned that I had been very busy doing lots of workshops for student-teachers about using resources in classrooms.  This year, a few instructors and I came up with a new spin on how to introduce the diverse range of resources available to them from the Doucette Library, but within a meaningful context.  I've found that book-talking or waving wonderful kits at students, though fun, isn't very effective.  They don’t remember what they've seen or they make lists of stuff that they’ll never look at again.

But, pulling bunches of stuff (aka “packages” of juvenile fiction and nonfiction, kits, posters, teaching resources) together centred around an idea like sound, nutrition or the question, ‘What is art?’ and then letting students play and explore the resources seems to produce a more thoughtful experience.  Questions about the resources and follow-up discussion get them thinking about how these resources can be used in their teaching, what the resources add to the unit,  and if are they worthwhile.  Plus, the hands-on approach for the students is way more engaging.

One of the ‘packages’ I pulled together that kind of surprised me but totally sucked me in, was centred on marine life, specifically the giant squid.  Since Alberta is a prairie province, studying the ocean is not part of the curriculum.  But this fascinating, creepy, slightly repulsive, creature is too good to pass up, if the opportunity should arise.  You never know where the interests of your students will go, right?

During the last few months I've come across pieces in the news and other odd bits of information about these captivating creatures.  I've always been taken with the image of the giant squid’s eye from Steve Jenkins, ActualSize which shows the ‘actual size’ of the eye.  It. Is. Big. : about 25 cm. (10 in.) in diameter. Showing this illustration in a workshop always gets a response from students.

Another book by Lola Schaeferth, Just One Bite: 11 Animals and Their Bites at Life Size, includes a four page spread that shows the jaws of a sperm whale clamping down on a giant squid, its favourite food. Awesome!

Then a recommendation from another blog prompted me to order Giant Squid: Searching for a Sea Monsterby Mary Cerullo and Clyde Roper (594.58 CeG 2012).  I gobbled this book up.  It briefly covers historical references to this fairly unknown creature that tantalize us into wanting to know more.  Scientific knowledge about the giant squid is still relatively new since they live in the deepest regions of the oceans and most information has been derived from dead specimens.  Scientists have been pulling together slivers of evidence for decades as if trying to solve an intriguing cold case.  There are lots of photographs interspersed between blocks of information.

But wait! There’s more! HereThere Be Monsters: the Legendary Kraken and the Giant Squid by H.P. Newquist (594.58 NeH 2010) was already in the Doucette Library’s collection.  This book is a lot denser in text formatting and information primarily about the colossal squid (14m or 45 ft long) and the giant squid (estimated to grow up to 13m or 43 ft long).  Many of the illustrations are the same as in Giant Squid.  I found this one a more thorough but slower read.  

I recommend both books but think the first book will appeal to younger kids and struggling readers more.

To fill out the package for the workshop, I included,

 Down Down Down by Steve Jenkins,

The Deep by Claire Nouvian,

 The Big Green Book of the Big Blue Sea by Helaine Becker,

 Oceanology: the True Account of theVoyage of the Nautilus by Zoticus de Lesseps, 1863 by Emily Hawkins,

Ocean in a box kit: 20 driedspecimens for classroom study,

a specimen of an octopus encased in a plastic block for comparison, and

a replica of a toothfrom a sperm whale.

There were many more books that I could have supplemented this topic with.

And, I did order a replica of a giant squid beak for next time, so there’ll be one more resource to “oooo” and “ahhh” over. 

I love doing these kinds of workshops.  They present options for our student teachers and resources that they are often unaware of.  The accessibility of the internet has made unit/lesson planning an interesting endeavor that can be too easily padded out with multiple websites of varying quality.  Don’t get me wrong.  I, too, am out there looking for information on the net (see Ocean Portal from the Smithsonian about the giant squid, if you’re really keen) but I'm still in the camp that kids need real ‘stuff’ and books to touch and handle.  I'm here to remind our upcoming-teachers-to-be about that very thing.

Woven stories

Textiles, in general, hold a certain fascination for me.  I love the tactile quality of producing a textile and that they can touch people across time and space. I love the potential for them to tell a story, both explicitly and implicitly.  The potential for them to capture the imagination of kids is also a real possibility.


A current exhibition at the Military Museums in Calgary recently reminded me of this power.  This exhibition showcases rugs woven in traditional Afghani style but that now depict weapons and other machines of war such as tanks and helicopters, reflecting the seemingly never ending conflict this country endures. This is a recent adaptation marketed primarily to non-Afghanis, such as soldiers and diplomats.  What a cool hook to tie in to current affairs.

I’ve always enjoyed looking at medieval tapestries showing battles being won and lost, maidens, mythical beasts, and glimpses of the lives of the rich (if not famous), which allow us to see a time past.  Quilts sown by black slaves, subversively offering clues to routes to freedom under the noses of cruel masters, also offer rich narrative and capture the imagination. Nothing like secret codes to appeal to students.

The Doucette Library recently purchased two arpilleras (similar to the one shown but not exactly the same) (958 Cou 2006 AV) from Peru that introduced me to another form of textile storytelling.  These particular pieces are brightly, embroidered squares of cloth showing marketplaces in city and country settings.  Great resources for the grade 3 social studies Alberta curriculum which studies Peru.  But, wanting to know more about them, I typed ‘arpilleras’ into Google and brought up references that takes this craft back to Chile and how it was used primarily by women during the regime of Pinochet as a form of protest about ‘the disappeared’, family members how were kidnapped and arrested by the government often never to be seen again.  What an interesting way to tell a story.  Maybe not for grade three but certainly could be used at the high school level where the curriculum looks at different types of ‘isms’ and governments. Or, you could talk about the importance of cooperatives, where many arpilleras are created as a source of income for the poor living in the slums of Peru.  So many layers can be embedded in a seemingly innocuous tourist souvenir.


Here are a few books that tie textiles to story:

   Memories of survival by Esther Nisenthal Krinitz (940.5318 KrM 2005) - Suggested for grades 6 and up.  An elderly Jewish woman constructs several fabric panels that tells of her survival in Poland during the Holocaust.

Whispering cloth: a refugee story by Pegi Deitz Shea (823 Sh3W PIC BK) - Suggested for grades 2-6. A Hmong girl living in a refugee camp learns, from her grandmother, the craft of making pa’ndau, story cloths that are a source of income and comfort as she tells her own traumatic story.

Dia’s story cloth (973.0495 ChD 1996) - Suggested for grades 3 and up.  A true story about another Hmong family living in Laos during the 1960s and their escape to Thailand.  Includes lots of information about this art form and its importance to the Hmong people, a history of Laos as well as a personal history.

Stitching truth: women’s protest art in Pinochet’s Chile by Dan Eshet (waiting to be catalogued)- A study unit that looks at how women ‘fought’ back against the terror of Pinochet’s brutal government.

Art against the odds: from slave quilts to prison paintings by Susan Goldman Rubin (709.0407 RuA 2004).  Suggested for grades 5 and up.  Includes a chapter about American slaves quilting maps to freedom.

And two more examples of actual textiles in our collection: 

Sujani story cloth (954 Su 2006 AV) - An embroidered cloth that depicts everyday life for a woman living in rural India.


Metis sashes (970.00497 M Hab 2005 AV) - These sashes directly connect the history of the Metis to the development of Canada telling us of the importance of the sash both practically and symbolically. 

Join Nonfiction Monday Roundup at Madigan Reads to see a list of recent blogs dedicated to highlighting nonfiction resources.

No bones about it

Just having been to the fantastic exhibition, Body Worlds here in Calgary, a recent book to arrive at the Doucette Library, Bones by Steve Jenkins all but leaped off the shelf.  Besides, I love Steve Jenkins’ books and this is no exception.

Well, with a title like Bones what could you expect, except a book about bones?  Human bones, and animal bones, big and small, from all parts of the body are included here. Besides the informative illustrations, there are plenty of interesting facts and tidbits, especially at the back, about bones, bones and more bones. But let’s get back to the illustrations.

Though I particularly loved how the author shows the actual size of some bones, I thought those shown to scale would have even more application in the classroom.  For example, we see skulls for humans and mouse lemurs – both in actual size, side-by-side to illustrate the differences in sizes. A fold-out page then compares the human skull to several animals, again in real-life size, from a tree shrew, a parrot, a dog to a babirusa (wild pig).  But what to do with the big bones of an elephant or even a T Rex?  In the case of the T-Rex we see the leg/foot in relation to that of a human, both scaled to one-fifth their actual sizes.  Comparing elephants and storks? Shrink them to 1/16 their actual size. Very effective.

Just as with the author’s book Actual size, connecting math (scale, measurements) to science (both biology and physics) and health becomes very easy.

All of a sudden I’m seeing a wonderful cross-curricular unit using bones connecting math, science, health, art, history, social studies, and language arts.

There are tons of science books about forensics (Bone detective (363.25092 HOB 2005))

or fossils (Dinosaurs!: battle of the bones (567.9 SiD 2009) or Bones rock!: everything you need to know to become a paleontologist (560 LaB 2004))

or technology (Traditional Inuit way kit (970.0049712 TR A/V))

or art (Georgia’s bones (759.13 BrG 2005 PIC BK); Stones, bones and stitches: storytelling through Inuit art (709.7 FaS 2007))

or math (Your 206 bones, 32 teeth and other body math (612 OsY 2006))

or social studies (Day of the dead (394.264 HOD 1994))

or history (Smiler’s bones (823 L56S FIC))

or language arts (loads of pictures books with skeletons in them; Skeleton man (823 B83S FIC) a short, creepy novel)

For science, here are a few hands-on kits found in the Doucette Library that are just too cool not to include:

Human x-ray print set (611 Hu 1991 A/V)

Broken bones x-rays (617.15 Br 2007 A/V)

Animal x-rays (571.3 An 2004 A/V)

What’s inside animals (uncatalogued)

Coyote skull replica (599.7725 Co 2008 A/V)

Beaver skull replica (599.37 Am 2008 A/V)

Bat skeleton (599.4 Ba 2009 A/V)

If those without access to the Doucette Library would like more information about the kits, drop me a line and I’ll be more than willing to let you know what they are and where we get them.

Connecting Ideas to Resources - The World

I love connecting the dots. But these days my ‘dots’ are resources and I  especially love it when they start to connect in really meaningful ways.

For example, Art Against the Odds (709.0407 RuA 2004) describes where we can unexpectedly find (or often miss) art produced in places such as prisons or mental institutions.  Or, in third world countries where the head of a charitable organization watched a young boy playing with a homemade boat (old rubber, flip flop, sticks and string).  This piece of ‘art’ returned to the U.S. (in exchange for a real boat the whole village could use for fishing) and inspired a traveling art show with toys/art created by poor people, usually children, from the developing world.

Connection No. 1 – Galimoto by Vera Williams (823 W6733G PIC BK) 

-An African boy describes his day collecting bits of stuff to make his own wire push car.

Connection No. 2 –   Push toys from 10,000 Villages (745.59 Ga 2006 A/V)

                                   Bottlecap Monkey  (731 Bo 2006 Realia)

                                   Recycled products kit (363.728 Re 2005 A/V)

                                                -All the above provide examples of items

                                    made from bits of stuff.

Connection No. 3 – Material World : Global Family Portrait (306.85 Ma 2007)

                                                -Looks at families from around the world and

                                    their possessions.  Besides seeing the disparity

                                    between rich and poor countries we see what items

                                    are considered important. 

I see great connections with these resources and the grade 3 social studies curriculum where students learn about quality of life in various countries.

This begs the question: How do our own lives or the lives of kids from your classrooms, compare?

Lots of opportunity for cross-curricular connections, too.  Think art, math and science.

Ewww! Yuck! --- Let me see that!

Don’t ever underestimate the gross factor as a way to get kids interested and engaged in a topic.

The following resources have potential for grossing out and attracting at the same time.  Funny how a lot of them relate to bodily functions, isn’t it?

Enjoy!

Nonfiction books and kits (for elementary and middle school)
*Animal scat identification kit (599 AN 2008 A/V)

*Black spider puppet (791.53 SP 2005 A/V)

*Bug science: 20 projects and experiments about arthropods : insects, arachnids, algae, worms, and other small creatures (595 YOB 2009)

*Left for dead: a young man's search for justice for the USS Indianapolis (940.545973 NEL 2002) (suggested for grades 9 and up)

*Man eating bugs: the art and science of eating insects (394.1 MEM 1998)

*Oh, rats!: the story of rats and people (599.352 MAO 2006)

*Ouch!: how your body makes it through a very bad day (612 WAO 2007)

*Poop: a natural history of the unmentionable (573.49 DAP 2004)

*Qwiggle-gel brain mold (612.82 QW 2005 A/V)

*Rear ends: found photos from the collection of Roger Handy (779 RE 2007)

*Snake (597.96 MAS 2006)

*Sneeze! (612.2 SIS 2007)

*What stinks? (573.877 SIW 2006)

*What's eating you?: parasites--the inside story (578.65 DAW 2007)

*What's living in your classroom? (579 SOW 2004)

Picture books

*Big Al (823 C591B PIC BK)

*I stink! (823 M229I PIC BK)

*Mucky moose (823 AL533M PIC BK)

*What's that awful smell? (823 T236W PIC BK)