Agriculture Pringle Challenge

I had so much fun planning this Agriculture Pringle Challenge and I think the students had even more fun competing in it! On Wednesday, February 5th I presented to a 3rd and 4th grade classroom at Summit School! The purpose of our lesson was to learn about different modes of agriculture transportation and packaging.

Agricultural commodities are transported in a variety of different ways. Transportation is the movement of people or goods from one place to another and in this lesson, students will explore how our food gets from the farm to the grocery store. Agricultural commodities can be transported by land, sea and air. Farmers, transporters and agribusiness personnel must consider packaging and how the products will safely arrive at their next destination. Students designed their own package for a pringle chip. They used the engineering process to build and test different designs for their durability and protection.

Materials:

-1 can of Pringles

- Pickles to Pittsburgh, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatball 2 story written by Judi Barrett

- Cardstock paper

- Newspaper

- Cardboard

- Coffee filters

- Rubber bands

- Cotton

- Paper cups

- Tape

- Scissors

Links:

CGB video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBwpqc-ifSw

Banana video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqHMKj04WQ0

We began the lesson by reading the book Pickles to Pittsburgh by Judi Barrett. I followed up the story by asking the students to name different forms of transportation they observed. We discussed how farmers, transporters and agribusiness personnel must also think about packaging, food safety, processing and labeling.

We then watched the CGB, Consolidated Grain and Barge, video. I asked the students to brainstorm the differences between the story and video. How do perishable and non-perishable items differ in packaging and transportation? How do packages look different? Why are there different packages?

I instructed the students to engineer a package for their Pringle that would withstand two challenges: 1. dropping it from the top of a chair and 2. dropping a book on it. The group with the fewest broken pieces wins!

The Agriculture Pringle Challenge is a combination of a National Agriculture in the Classroom lesson; By Land, Sea, or Air and a project I did in Mrs. Harken's seventh grade science class. For more information email Morgan Hibbs at mhibbs@ifbf.org.