FoodSpan is a free, downloadable curriculum that provides high school students with a deep understanding of critical food system issues, empowers them to make healthy and responsible food choices, and encourages them to become advocates for food system change. 

The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future developed FoodSpan as a natural outgrowth of the work it does to help build a healthier, more equitable, and more resilient food system.

FoodSpan is a second-generation curriculum, as it builds off the Teaching the Food System (TFS) curriculum that launched in 2011. We are grateful to all the teachers who used TFS and inspired many of the refinements that appear in FoodSpan. 

What is the food system? 

The food system spans the activities, people and resources involved in getting food from field to plate. Along the way, it intersects with aspects of public health, equity and the environment.

Why teach the food system?

The public has shown a growing concern for food system issues. Widespread problems such as chronic illness, infectious disease, social inequality, animal welfare harms, environmental degradation, and the concentration of economic power have ties to the food system. Recognizing these connections can empower young people to become not only informed consumers, but also food citizens who can engage in many facets of the food system, from growing their own food to advocating for policies.

Getting Started

In the FoodSpan curriculum, you will find three units with 17 total lessons for Grades 9-12. Each lesson features an introductory warm-up, activities that facilitate a rich exploration of the lesson topic, optional activities, and lesson extensions that can serve as homework assignments or projects.

The curriculum contains elements found in all typical lesson plans, such as learning objectives, essential questions, time required, handouts, slides, supplies required, and a glossary. Read on to learn about additional elements that make the curriculum engaging, relevant, and easy to incorporate into your classroom.

Standards

The curriculum is aligned to national education standards: Next Generation Science Standards, National Council on Social Studies Standards, Common Core English Language Arts Standards, National Health Education Standards, and National Standards for Family and Consumer Sciences Education. A standards chart for each lesson can be found here. In addition, the activities cultivate critical 21st Century skills, such as systems thinking, problem solving, and effective reasoning.

Pacing & Sequencing

Lessons are designed to be taught within a 45- to 55-minute class period. The curriculum can be taught in sequential order, but each lesson also stands on its own, so teachers can pick the topics most relevant to their students’ needs and interests.

The first lesson (Lesson A) lays the groundwork for an integrated understanding of the food system. Even if teachers only cover a few of the other lessons, we recommend starting with this lesson. The lesson also introduces the FoodSpan Infographic, a roadmap for the entire curriculum. Each subsequent lesson will revisit the infographic and focus on a specific part of it.

Lesson Extentions

Where applicable, lessons contain optional in-class activities that typically explore the lesson topic through the lens of subject areas not covered in the main activities. If teachers choose to include optional activities, they may want to split the lesson between two class periods. Optional activities vary in length from 10 to 30 minutes.

Each lesson also ends with several lesson extensions: longer activities and projects that provide students with an opportunity to dive deeper into the lesson topic. Extensions are ideally suited as homework assignments or longer-term classroom projects.

Food System Primer

The Center for a Livable Future has created a series of primers on key food system issues, which are referred to throughout the curriculum. Teachers can use the primers to familiarize themselves with a lesson topic before teaching it and to provide students with introductory background reading. The primers also provide resource lists that students can use as a starting point for research projects.

Food Citizen Action Project

In this culminating project, students will apply what they have learned by identifying a food system problem and designing an intervention to address it.