Subject Area
Social Studies

Activity Overview
Experts say that genetic engineering can increase the amount of food produced on the same amount of land that is currently being farmed. Students will locate the 20 countries most lacking in food that could most benefit from increased food production.

Materials
world map
pencil/pen
paper
research materials

Activity Outline
You will need to provide information and statistics on the top five food producing countries in the world. Provide information/statistics similar to those you expect the students to research.
Have students:
1. Investigate which countries have the lowest per capita food production.
2. Identify and label those 20 countries on a world map.
3. Graph the amount of food produced in those countries compared to the top five producing countries.
4. Write a report on the findings made by analyzing the research data.

Resources
United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization <www.fao.org>
United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF)< www.unicef.org>
The World Food Programme <www.wfp.org>
The Hunger Site <www.thehungersite.com>
Scientific American online <www.sciam.com/2001/0201issue/0201postel.html>

Assessment
Assess comprehension by evaluating the map and graph.

Standards and Benchmarks
Geography
The World in Spatial Terms
Standard 1. Understands the characteristics and uses of maps, globes, and other geographic tools and technologies
2. Uses thematic maps (e.g., patterns of population, disease, economic features, rainfall, vegetation)
4. Knows the advantages and disadvantages of maps, globes, and other geographic tools to illustrate a data set (e.g., data on population distribution, language-use patterns, energy consumption at different times of the year)
7. Knows the characteristics and purposes of geographic databases (e.g., databases containing census data, land-use data, topographic information)

Standard 2: Knows the location of places, geographic features, and patterns of the environment
1. Knows the location of physical and human features on maps and globes(e.g., culture hearths such as Mesopotamia, Huang Ho, the Yucatan Peninsula, the Nile Valley; major ocean currents; wind patterns; land forms; climate regions)

Standard 3:Understands the characteristics and uses of spatial organization of Earth's surface
1. Understands distributions of physical and human occurrences with respect to spatial patterns, arrangements, and associations (why some areas are more densely settled than others, relationships and patterns in the kind and number of links between settlements)
2. Understands patterns of land use in urban, suburban, and rural areas (land uses that are frequently nearby and others not frequently adjacent to one another, dominant land-use patterns in city centers and peripheral areas)

Places and Regions
Standard 4: Understands the physical and human characteristics of place
1. Knows the human characteristics of places (e.g., cultural characteristics such as religion, language, politics, technology, family structure, gender; population characteristics; land uses; levels of development)
2. Knows the physical characteristics of places (e.g., soils, land forms, vegetation, wildlife, climate, natural hazards)