The Food Price Rollercoaster

The Food Price Rollercoaster is a new infographic produced by the World Food Programme to illustrate fluctuations in food prices over the last three and one-half years. The infographic highlights some major world events that happened at the same time as some large food price fluctuations. The infographic also illustrates the disparity between what families in rich countries spend on food and what those in poorer countries spend on food. You can view the infographic here or below.

Applications for Education
To support your use of this infographic, the United Nations' World Food Programme's website has excellent resources for learning about world hunger and fighting world hunger. On the website teachers can download lesson plans for use in grades four through nine. These lesson plans call for a mix of online and offline activity. The lesson plan that teaches students what it's like to live on less than two dollars per day struck me as being a potentially powerful lesson for some students. Before using the lesson plans, you may want to have students review Hunger 101 on the WFP's website. In Hunger 101 students will learn basic world hunger statistics and vocabulary.