Science and Our Food Supply: Investigating Food Safety from Farm to Table

“May I take your order”

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Walk up to one student and ask: May I take your order, please? How do you like 

your hamburger? What would you like on your salad? 

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Take 2 or 3 more orders and write them down. Then ask students (if they haven’t 

already asked you): What do you think the hamburger, orange juice, and salad 

have to do with science? 

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List their answers on the board, then ask: Which of these foods would you most 

like to eat? Is there anything that might be on the hamburger, in the orange juice, 

or in the salad that you didn’t order? 

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You may have to give them a few hints. Hopefully, someone will mention  

bacteria or germs. Then say: Aha! You have your first clue to the connection 

between these foods and science! 

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Now ask: Have you or has anyone you know ever become ill from eating food? 

Encourage students to explain when? what? and where? How could you get sick 

from a hamburger, orange juice, or a salad? (You can get sick if harmful bacteria 

are present in the food. This is called “foodborne illness,” sometimes referred to 

as “food poisoning.”)

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