Critical food and nutrition-related issues in Life Sciences curricula for public South African schools

Abstract

The United Nations adopted eight Millennium Development Goals in 2000. Five of these target issues are in respect of poverty and hunger, reduction in child mortality, improving maternal health, the fighting of HIV, AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and the assurance of environmental sustainability. Relationships between nutrition, food, hunger and poverty are discussed. In the second part of the article we speculate on how some philosophical and paradigmatic approaches may influence curriculum design and curriculum development. Some policy changes regarding knowledge acquisition, knowledge development, the achievement of specific educational objectives and learners’ awareness of critical social trends, as set out in the introductory part of the article, are explored. The reader’s attention is then drawn to the reconstruction of societies through planned curriculating and the strengthening of learners’ moral identities. The representation of critical food and nutrition-related issues are explained regarding the Science and Technology curriculum in the three South African schooling phases, namely the Intermediate Phase (Grades 4–6), the Senior Phase (Grades 7–9) and the Further Education and Training Phase (Grades 10–12). Reference is made to aspects such as energy and transfer of energy, food chains, energy and movement, photosynthesis, nutrients and food, ecosystems, food webs, food processing, water purification and balance in the ecosystem, conservation of the ecosystem, healthy diet planning, energy transformation to support life, animal nutrition, population ecology and the human impact on the environment, as well as current crises.