Climate Change: Where Does Our Fruit Come From?

In this activity the students explore the concept of food miles related to fruit and considers how we could become more self-sufficient.

Purpose 

To understand What is Happening by exploring the concept of food miles and the arguments for sourcing our food locally. 

Curriculum: Mathematics and geography.

Materials 

Sets of cards should be prepared from the activity sheet below to show:

1. Where fruit has travelled from to the UK in autumn when our own fruit trees and bushes are available
2. The food miles travelled.

• A globe of the Earth.
• A blank map of the Earth.
• Blu-tack.

Groupings 

• KS2/3. Children work in pairs.

Procedure

Using the picture cards, ask each pair to pick a card and find its country of origin on the world map and attach it to the map.

Teacher Question

• Why do you think so little of our fruit comes from the UK? Useful fact: Over 60% of the UK’s apple orchards have been destroyed in the last 30 years. 
• What distance has your fruit has travelled?
• Whole Class: Can you line up according to the distance travelled? 
• Pairs: Can you find out how many Kg of carbon it takes to transport the fruit? This will depend on whether the fruit is transported by airfreight, ship or lorry. The young people can research this online. NB this will depend on season of the year. 
• Does it matter that our fruit has travelled across the world to get here? 

Useful facts: transporting delicate foods long distances requires packaging to protect them. The further fruit and vegetables have travelled, the more their vitamin and mineral content deteriorates.  

• Look at the packaging around the fruit on the picture cards – why is this a problem? 

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