Curriculum Links: English En2: 5a. En3: 1a, 1d, 9b, 11, 12; Maths Ma1: 1e, 1f. Ma2: 2i. Ma4: 2a, 2c; ICT 1a, 2a, 3a, 3b, 5a, 5b; DT 1a, 1b, 3a; PSHE 5a, 5b, 5c, 5d, 5f; Art & Design 5a.
Resources Needed: Different recipe books, Producer Stories, a wall chart, access to internet, Geobars (or Geobar images).
Learning Objective: To understand the features of an instruction text (a recipe)
Learning Outcome: Children will understand the format and language used in recipes and create a class "Geobar World Cook Book."
Using the images or real Geobars as prompts, ask the class to guess what the fairtrade ingredients are in Traidcraft’s Geobar range.
(Traidcraft currently make four different types of Geobar: Mixed Berries; Fruit, Nut and Honey; Chocolate; and Apricot. The Fairtrade ingredients are raisins, rice, nuts, sugar, honey, blueberries, cocoa, apricots).
Who are Traidcraft? What do they do and why is it important? What does the Fairtrade Mark mean?
Discuss the different ways that we use these Fairtrade ingredients in this country and in meals from other cultures and countries and start to make a list of recipes/meals which use these ingredients.
Using: http://www.fairtradecookbook.org.uk/ingredient_index/rice.htm, look for recipes which (a) include the Geobar ingredients and (b) originate from the producer countries: India, Thailand, Chile, South Africa, Malawi, Mauritius.
In groups pupils explore the structure of the recipes, the type of language used and the layout of a variety of recipes books. Challenge pupils to create a class recipe book using the Geobar Fairtrade ingredients and examples of different recipes from the producer countries which can be sold to parents, carers and other children. They will need to draw images of their finished dish and include pictures of producers, producer stories and quotes to illustrate the difference fair trade makes.
Some groups may want to try and decide if their recipes are healthy as well and perhaps mark certain recipes as "good for you."
Each pupil can contribute one page and the pages can be photocopied and bound. As a class, pupils decide on a suitable price to sell the book for, and decide what to do with the profits. They need to keep track of sales figures on a colourful wall chart.
Alternatively, the pupils may want to try and make some of the recipes and sell them at a "Fairtrade Day" to make money for a Fairtrade charity. Small groups could visit the supermarket and see whether they could buy these ingredients as Fairtrade at the supermarket. Are the Fairtrade ingredients the same price as non-Fairtrade? If there is a difference, why do they think this is? Where else might you be able to find Fairtrade ingredients?
There could also be a class competition to design the front cover of the cookbook and the children could even write or perform advertisements for the cookbook, film them and show them in a school assembly.