Eat insects at Xmas

Short description

Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup, a cockroach on my pizza, and a worm in my rice. There are 2000 kinds of edible insects, and perhaps we should all be eating them to reduce the emissions from raising animals. 

In this activity students are asked to plan a Christmas menu for the school canteen which contains tasty insect dishes alongside more familiar ones. Can they use persuasive communication, and their knowledge of natural resources, to get students to opt for the insect alternatives?

Blueprint curriculum link

• Unit: Using resources
• Concept: Product life-cycle: A product has an environmental impact during manufacture, use and disposal. Assessment of this impact allows changes to be made to reduce the impact
• Skills: Write: Choose the appropriate style
• Learning stage: Analyse

Weblinks

Lovely grub: are insects the future of food?

A comprehensive article on eating insects for teacher background reading

The FAO report on eating insects

Most of the data in this activity came from this FAO report on edible insects

Why not eat insects? TEDx talk

Professor Marcel Dicke from Wageningen UR makes an appetizing case for adding insects to everyone's diet.

Eat Grub

Why not offer your students some insects to try? Enter the code ENGAGEwithGRUB at the checkout for a 10% discount.