Sample Lesson Plans and Additional Resources

We teach children about food in their classrooms to set the foundation from which they will make healthier choices throughout their lives.

Pilot Light partners chefs and teachers to create food and nutrition-based educational experiences for children, including classroom curriculum that teaches children everyday subjects like math and science. These lessons reinvigorate students’ connections to their family traditions, empower critical thinking, and ignite a passion for research and scientific inquiry—literally feeding young minds.  Teachers are guided by Pilot Light’s Food Education Standards.

For instance, children in the Pilot Light program have explored social and cultural migration through the history of the al pastor taco and the hot dog; they have measured small temperature changes when cooking an egg to understand how temperature change effects mass and our environment; they have composed memoirs to express their personal histories through food; and they have sliced chickens in halves, fourths, and ninths, to master fractions and foster knowledge that has since been transferred back into their daily lives – in the classroom and at home.

Students also develop Food Advocacy Projects to create change in their communities. Recent projects have included mapping community resources and writing to local leaders.

Want to bring Pilot Light into your classroom? Contact Us to find out how you can enroll in the program and commit to bringing food education to your students.

What are some examples of Pilot Light lessons?

As you will see in our sample lessons (below), Pilot Light lessons can be adapted to classrooms of many grade levels, learning levels, and subjects/contents. Consistent with the integrative approach of the Pilot Light Model, teachers are encouraged to be creative in adapting Pilot Light lessons to meet their student’s learning needs by pulling from any of the grade band level suggestions and making modifications to activities or food experiences as appropriate for their classroom.