Organic farming and responsible consumption

The need for our educational garden to be managed in an ecological way does not only attend to reasons of health or quality of the product. The main advantage of an organic school garden over a conventional one lies in the greater educational potential of the former. In this activity we will introduce the history of agriculture and learn about the differences between conventional and organic crops, as well as how to identify the latter in the shops.

Cycle:

• 6-12 years.

Duration:

• 2 sessions.

Material:

• 1 egg from the store (with code printed on the shell).
• Educational video Organic farming Ecolina (click here).
• Photo Ecological certification logos (click here).
• Photo “The egg code” (click here).
• Educational video “Two tomatoes and two destinations” (click here).

Goals:

• Understand the origins of agriculture and what organic farming is.
• Know the differences between organic farming and conventional intensive farming.
• Learn to identify the logos that certify the quality of a product.
• Introduce the concept of ecological footprint.

Development:

In this activity we will learn many curious things about the history of organic farming and we will become aware of the importance of our decisions using the concept of ecological footprint.

Session 1

To introduce the subject, we will begin by talking about how agriculture was born:

“At first, man did not know how to grow plants and had to go from one place to another in search of food. These movements allowed him to observe how edible plants developed, in which places and at what time they were larger or more mature. He also learned how much water they needed, what time of year the new plants were born, and when they bore fruit. With time and the knowledge acquired, he discovered that he could plant the vegetables he needed to feed himself and he would not have to go looking for them in the places where they grew. This is how agriculture was born more or less 10,000 years ago and, with it, food was assured and was becoming more and more abundant. The human being was able to stay and live in fixed places and began to prosper. For thousands of years, man cultivated the land respecting nature, carrying out organic farming. However, about 50 years ago, man began to use chemicals to farm and forgot everything he had learned for thousands of years.

Next, the Ecolina Organic Agriculture video will be viewed (click here) to understand what ecological, organic or biological agriculture is and consists of.

In order to identify organic products in stores, we will show the photo of the main identifying logos of organic products in the European Union (click here). These logos certify the control and quality of their products. We will search the internet for 5 organic products and we will identify the logos that identify them as organic on their labeling. The consumption of these products contributes to a healthy diet.

Finally, to promote responsible consumption among students, we will find out where an egg that we have bought at the supermarket comes from. To do this, we will first visualize the infographic The egg code (click here), and later we will determine if the hens that laid that egg were raised in the wild or tightly packed in cages inside large buildings.

Session 2

This is the ideal time to introduce a new concept closely related to sustainability and responsible consumption: the ecological footprint. Looking at the 4th and 5th digit that appear in the egg code(click here), we can find out which province the egg comes from. These two numbers will correspond to the first two digits of the postal code of the province where the eggs come from. If the eggs do not come from our province, we must verify that the transport of the eggs pollutes and is not very sustainable, so our purchase will be more responsible the less distance there is between the place where the eggs come from and where we have bought them.

To end the activity, we will watch the video Two tomatoes and two destinations (click here). Once finished, we will make a video forum in which we will try to identify the main theme, the differences between the two tomatoes and the differences between the two types of cultivation. At the end, the students of the last courses will be proposed to make an adaptation to the video and represent it for the classmates and/or families and teachers.