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Elementary School Food Safety Lessons
Lesson
3 Keeping
Our Food Safe
National Health Education Standards
(grades 1-4) 1:1; 1:8; 3:1; 3:2 |
| Introduction |
Introduce this lesson: (modify introduction if you did not teach
lesson 2)
“In our last lesson we discovered why
the Panthers got sick at their picnic. Can anyone tell me the rule
we learned when we discovered
the reasons for their sickness? (Keep it clean. Keep it cold or keep
it hot. Or don't you dare eat what's not.) Today we will be reminded
that bacteria that made the Panthers sick are living one-cell organisms
that are so tiny they can only be seen with a microscope. In order
to grow, the bacteria need what you and I need: food, moisture (water),
and warmth. You'll remember in our last lesson we looked at a picture
that showed that bacteria grow best in the temperature danger
zone of
40°(F) to 140°(F). Really cold temperatures,
like freezing, stops bacteria from growing but may not kill the bacteria.
Most often, bacteria are killed when they are heated to very hot
degrees, such as when your family cooks hamburgers until the meat
is no longer pink inside. Any questions?” |
| activity 1 |
- Ask the students:
“Where are bacteria?” Record
student answers on a flip chart or on the board. (All around us;
in food [a sick person contaminates
food that is eaten by another person]; from one person to another;
on the food itself as it moves from the farm through the grocery
store and to our homes).
- Ask the students:
“How do you think bacteria get around?”
- Explain to the students:
“We are going to have one half of the class place flour on
their hands. These students will shake hands with those who do
not have
flour on their hands.”
- Ask the students:
“What do you see about how far the
flour has spread?” (Discuss
how the flour is analogous to the bacteria the students cannot
see. If you are adventurous, you can ask students to touch other
objects in the classroom to demonstrate bacteria spreading.)
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| activity 2 |
Introduce students to FOOD SAFETY HOUSE by saying:
“Sanitation is the first floor in our FOOD SAFETY HOUSE. On
the "Sanitation" floor
we keep clean by washing:
- Our hands.
- The surfaces where food is
prepared.
- The places where food is eaten
- The utensils
that help us prepare foods.”
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| activity 3 |
- State:
“One of the important "rooms" on the "Sanitation" floor
is for hand washing. In this lesson we are going to learn why
it is important to wash our hands, when to wash them, and how
to wash
our hands.”
- Inquire of students:
“Why do we wash our hands?”
(Elicit the following reasons:
- To clean our hands. Anytime you touch anything, as we found
out from our flour experiment, you get bacteria on your hands.
- To
keep bad bacteria from "traveling" one person
to the next.
- To keep our food free from bacteria that will
make us sick. [We must wash our hands before we touch, prepare,
serve, eat,
or store any kind of food.])
- Ask the students:
“When
do we wash our hands?”
(Elicit as many ideas as possible. Place student suggestions
on the board. Be sure to include the following:
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After using the bathroom.
- Before eating or drinking.
- Before preparing food.
- After touching a pet.
- After coughing or sneezing (remember the
Panther picnic) into our hands or blowing our nose.
- After touching
a cut.
- After playing outside.
- After touching raw or uncooked meat,
fish, or poultry.
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| activity 4 |
- State:
“We are now going to demonstrate the hand washing steps you see on
the board.” (Ask two adults or upper-class persons to demonstrate
the steps.)
- Ask the students:
“Do you have any questions about the correct way to wash your hands?” (Answer
the questions posed by students. Suggest that the students
demonstrate correct hand washing for their family members.)
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| closure |
- Share with the students:
“We have been reminded in this lesson
that bacteria are everywhere. In order to be sure that bacteria
that is harmful or 'bad' bacteria
does not get into food we touch, we help prepare, we store, we
serve, or we eat, we must be very careful to do a good hand washing job.
We learned the hand washing steps today and we can show our family
members just how to wash their hands!”
- State:
“I'm giving you a list of rules for
hand washing that you can take home to share with your family.
Maybe your family will let
you post the rules near where family members wash their hands.”
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| integration ideas |
- Third and fourth grade students can prepare a hand washing
demonstration for student in kindergarten through second grade.
All student can participate by presenting the reasons for hand
washing,
the techniques, and singing a song to demonstrate the period
of time that should be spent!
- Students in all grades can write a
story using the following vocabulary
words: bacteria, bad, eating, farm, food, grocery store, hands,
raw meat, serve, store, touch, wash.
- Third and fourth grade students can prepare
a skit, with help from adult volunteers who will assist with
scripting, costumes and
choreography, to tell the story of how to keep "bad" bacteria out
of food. The skit should be presented to students in K-2nd
grades.
- Illustrated hand washing posters can be developed in art classes
for students to take home. Please provide the art teacher
with rules for hand washing.
- Ask the librarian to order The
War on Germs. This nine-minute
video provides an excellent model for producing a play, skit, radio, or
TV presentation. Suggest that fourth graders use the video
as a model to produce a program for students in lower grades, or for an assembly.
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