World Food Day falls on Oct. 16 (Sunday) this year. It is a worldwide event intended to increase awareness, understanding and informed year-round action to fight hunger around the world.
For today’s lesson, as we did recently with the Global Nomads Group for a lesson about the famine in Somalia, we collaborated with the United Nations World Food Programme, a humanitarian organization that fights hunger worldwide.
In honor of World Food Day, we invite you to explore with us and the program the scope and impact of childhood hunger around the world.
Overview | In this lesson, developed in recognition of World Food Day, students consider the definition of hunger and where and how hunger most affects people, including children. They then consider the fact that hunger is “solvable” and create action plans to inform and engage their communities.
Materials | Computer with Internet access and projector (optional)
Warm-Up | Write the word “hunger” on the board and invite students to share whatever comes to mind – adjectives, places, ideas, etc. Create a list or word web on the board as students contribute ideas.
Then work as a class to develop a one-sentence definition for hunger using these shared ideas. The definition should try to address what hunger is, who it affects and why it occurs.
Next, project on a screen or provide print copies of the World Food Programme’s 2011 Hunger Map (PDF).
Guide students to use the key to explore where hunger is a serious problem around the world. Does anything on the map surprise them? For example, what do they think about the fact that there are more hungry people in Asia than in Africa?
On the board, write “global” in front of “hunger.” Ask: How does adding the word “global” change your sense of the word “hunger”? What does it mean for the world that hunger happens on a global scale?
Shift gears slightly and ask students to imagine what it is like for a child living in a country where people are suffering from hunger. Tell them that to get them thinking about childhood, they should write the following sentences in their notebooks and fill in the blanks:
Invite students to share their childhood dreams and support systems, which may include helpful family members and and teachers and access to various kinds of resources. They can also share their dreams on the World Food Programme’s Feed a Child, Feed a Dream Web page.
Tell them that they will now start to find out more about the impact that hunger can have on a child and how it can affect everything from daily life to dreams and aspirations.