Podcast Creation Lesson: Cultural Foods
Lesson Plan
2 hours 30 minutesGrades9, 10English Language Arts
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Written by Kara Hisatake
About this lesson
Students research the climate resiliency of heritage dishes and interview community members for a podcast.
Inquire: Students assess different arguments about diet’s link to climate change.
Investigate: Students research the climate resiliency of a heritage dish that is important to them.
Inspire: Students use interviews to create a podcast alongside research sources to show how food from their heritage can help save the world from climate change.
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Suggestions
- This lesson aligns with Hawai’i’s Nā Hopena A‘o HĀ-BREATH Framework.
- This lesson can be completed over three days by completing the Inquire and Investigate sections on the first day, and the Inspire section over the following two days. The interviews and podcast assembly can be assigned for homework.
- This lesson can be a scholarly project since students use scholarly sources and interview experts in the field. Teachers can reach out to local podcast experts for guest speakers.
- Students connect to their own family history and identity through food culture, allowing the opportunity to take pride in sharing their food culture, identity, and choices.
- Teachers should emphasize during the lesson that students have a choice in their diets, and that choices matter. For example, not everyone has to be vegan, but what we eat and how we spend our money conveys a message to those who produce our food.
Prerequisites
- Teacher should preview this lesson and review sources and possible foods that contribute to or mitigate climate change.
- Students will need access to a microphone and a quiet space to record their podcasts. Students will need access to editing tools such as the following:
- GarageBand on a MacBook
- iMovie on a MacBook
- Free apps such as
- https://anchor.fm/ requires login, easy to use, includes free music
- https://www.audacityteam.org/ requires installation
- Students may search for royalty-free music for their podcasts. Here are some sites to consider:
Differentiation
- This lesson may be turned into a longer unit project regarding research that aligns with English Language Arts, Social Studies, and Health.
- Students can use the information in Carbon Brief’s Interactive Food Map to have a larger discussion about traditional foods and how they must change.
- Teacher can share podcasts from NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge as examples of what a student podcast might sound like. Students may also enter the competition.
- Teacher can extend this lesson by asking students to create an attractive flier to advertise their podcast and have as many people listen and “rate” it as possible.
- Teacher may end the lesson with a classroom potluck.
- An example list of heritage foods can be found at the end of the Teacher Answer Key for those who need inspiration. Note: this is not an exhaustive list.
- Teachers and students who are unfamiliar with podcasting can listen to several podcasts so get an idea of what to do:
- This American Life, Episode 679 “Save the Girl” (1 hour); award-winning podcast
- Civil Beat: Are We Doomed? And Other Environmental Questions many short episodes (~10 min)
- Civil Beat: Offshore Stories from Hawai‘i (~15-20 min)
From the scientist review
The lesson provides a detailed explanation of food choices and cultural identity. It allows students to learn about ways Indigenous food can contribute to mitigating climate change and sustaining their cultural identities. The lesson has credible accompanying materials and we recommend this lesson for teaching.
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About the teacher writer
Kara Hisatake
Teacher
Kara Hisatake holds a PhD in Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She has more than six years of experience teaching high school English Language Arts for grades 9–12. Her expertise is in literature and English language arts education.
