Chocolate, Charities, Choice,and ChartsA Service-Learning Project

Conducted byCasady School’s Third Graders

Main Objectives of the Project• To increase the students’ global awareness

regarding human needs, social justice, economics, and the environment

• To nurture the students empathic imaginations• To instill a sense of empowerment and social

responsibility• To engage students in the application of math

concepts such as interpreting charts, and to expose them to business concepts such as expenses, gross sales, and profit

Overview• Third graders sell Fair Trade chocolate and

direct the proceeds to charities that they choose.

• There are four main components:

Learning

Selling

Charity Selection

Promoting

What is Fair Trade?Fair Trade certification guarantees that farmers receive a fair price for their cocoa.

Fair Trade certification ensures fair labor conditions—safe working conditions, living wages, and forced child labor is prohibited. Fair Trade certification also ensures environmental sustainability.

Component One: Learning

Language Arts activities explore many aspects of chocolate:

History

Manufacture

Cultural significance

Cultivation

Environmental Impact

The students also write letters to chocolate companies in language arts class.

Student’s name omitted.

The students learn about five different charities that focus on five different areas of need:

Education

Medical Care

Disaster Relief

Hunger

Shelter

PAMBE Ghana

Doctors without Borders

American Red Cross

Oklahoma Regional Food Bank

Habitat for Humanity

Students announce and explain the project to the school.

Component Two: Promoting

Students also make posters and display them around the school.

The students are encouraged to incorporate some of the information that they’ve learned about fair trade and chocolate production. And perhaps apply some concepts they’ve learned about media and advertizing.

$2.00 per bar!

Finally!

Component Three: Selling

Third graders distribute chocolate and collect money.

And,of course,they also count money!

Component Four: Charity Selection

We determine how much money we have generated. What is our profit?

We use Excel to examine these business principles.

We discuss business principles: pricing, expenses, gross sales, and profits.

At this point in the project, the students have been learning about these concepts throughout the selling period as we paid off our expense and eventually derived a profit.

Each student receives a ballot that explains the voting process and summarizes what they have learned about each charity.

Each student has ten votes that they can allot to the charities in whatever way they please.

We collect the ballots and enter the votes into an Excel spreadsheet which we project for the students to see.

As we enter the votes, the spreadsheet calculates the percentages and dollar amounts that each charity is receiving.

And the spreadsheet generates a pie chart that shows the changing percentages as we enter the.

How Casady’s Third Graders Decided to Help the World

Extension and EnrichmentDivine Chocolate bar wrappers are decorated with Adinkra symbols.

More information at http://www.adinkra.org/

Adinkra symbols are often depicted on West African crafts.Each Adinkra symbol has its own special meaning.

Students learn about Adinkra symbols in art class and create a special art project.