Lesson: Rice Celebration

Source: Philadelphia World Heritage Tool Kit

Created by: Tia Larese, Penn Alexander School

Subjects: Literacy, Social Studies

Grade Levels: 3-5

View or download this Lesson Plan.

Overview: Almost everyone eats rice in some form or another. This lesson uses rice as a means to explore global heritage, focusing on the similarities and differences between the children of Philadelphia classrooms to children in the country of Bangladesh, the fourth largest rice producer in the world. Using literature, writing, technology, research, and food, this lesson aims to explore everyday life around the world.

Objectives: Students will be able to examine how food and other cultural practices represent different cultures in order to appreciate the diversity within our classroom. They will be able to describe and identify Philadelphia as a “City of Neighborhoods” in order to relate the importance of immigration to our city and country. Students will be able to identify the geography and location of Asia in order to analyze the effect a geographic location has on the way people live.

The Philadelphia World Heritage Tool Kit

This lesson is one of 29 lessons (K-12, all subjects) in the Philadelphia World Heritage Tool Kit. The goal of the Tool Kit is to help educators and their students develop a transnational analysis in their classrooms by using complex themes of world heritage as a framework to understand global regions across disciplines. These themes include shared architectural, cultural, economic, environmental, political, recreational, religious, and social heritage features.  Real teachers created these lessons and based their work on “best practices” that reflect student collaboration and the broad goals of young people in ways that support care and understanding of others who may be very different in background and history.