Focus on Food Insecurity

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Lesson

7

Concept

Real cost-of-living data transforms an abstract problem into a concrete, locally-grounded one and testing an initial claim against evidence, rather than simply accepting or rejecting it, is how a class actually learns the size of a problem.

Focus Question

How much does it cost to "get by" in Ontario?

Knowledge & Understanding Goals

Mathematics, Financial Literacy Strand F, Grade 4: Estimate and calculate the cost of living, identifying the essential expense categories of an individual or family budget.
Language, Strand C (Comprehension), C3 — Critical Thinking in Literacy, Grade 4: Apply critical thinking skills to analyze how a topic is communicated and addressed across multiple text/media forms (video, statistics, print).

Thinking & Learning Skills

ATL — Thinking Skills: Using data to confirm, question, or revise an initial claim.
ATL — Research Skills: Evaluating data sources; distinguishing what evidence supports from what it leaves unanswered.
Learner Profile: Knowledgeable, Reflective.

Context

The unit's most quantitative lesson and its clearest Math Financial Literacy connection a strong candidate to co-teach with the math block rather than treat as a standalone Judaic-studies lesson.

Enrichment note: a real, previously-piloted activity exists for this lesson a family cost-of-living research task (using Flipp for live grocery prices, MBM/Statistics Canada poverty-line data by city) run as a parent event across 37 Canadian cities. Integration into this lesson (scope: Ontario cities only vs. cross-Canada comparison; format: parent event vs. standard class activity) is still pending your decision and is not yet reflected in the outline below.

Lesson Outline

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO "GET BY" IN ONTARIO, AND HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?

Remind students of their Lesson 1 poverty definitions. Ask: "If that is poverty, what does it mean to 'get by'?" (Students might suggest: being able to pay all the bills; having enough money to do what you want and save a little.) Provide recent reports/data about local cost of living; ask students to estimate how much money a person or family might need to "get by," including: food, shelter, clothing and footwear, transportation, medical expenses, insurance, communications, child care, other (personal care, household supplies, laundry, recreation, entertainment, gifts).

THINKING ABOUT THE SIZE OF THE PROBLEM Introduce the text from Pirkei Avot 3:17: "Without bread (sustenance) there can be no Torah. Without Torah there can be no sustenance." Ask: What do you think this text means? Pose the claim students will investigate: "How big of a problem is hunger in Canada?" Have students place their initial position on a spectrum from a pretty small problem to a very large problem, and record it as their starting claim.

LOOK AT DATA In pairs, students consider data/statistics about local hunger — Breakfast Club of Canada video; Daily Bread's Who's Hungry Report; reference stats (1 in 6 kids in Ontario experience food insecurity; more than 1 million kids in Canada go to school hungry) — and record what they find as evidence supporting, or revising, their initial claim. Close by asking: what does this data not explain? (E.g., the statistics say how many kids are affected, but not why, or what specifically changes for a family week to week — a good bridge into the videos that follow.)

CONSIDERING MULTIPLE POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS Watch a set of videos on ways people address hunger locally (Breakfast Club of Canada story; Leket Israel produce recovery; Little Free Pantry Project; community meal programs; community gardens; new food bank openings). Consider whether each depicted action would be effective for the class.

EVALUATING STRATEGIES In small groups, rank the options (volunteering at a breakfast program; collecting/distributing extra produce; starting a food pantry; starting/helping a community garden; volunteering or donating to a food bank) using the fishbone process from Lesson 5 — one bone each for impact, feasibility, and measurability. Groups share their best option and reasons.

Notes for Teaching and Evaluation

Claim, Support, Question (Project Zero thinking routine): anchors the lesson to a single position students commit to before seeing the data, rather than a one-off warm-up question that gets forgotten once the videos start — makes the shift (or lack of one) after the evidence something concrete to assess.