Planning an Outing

Overview

This is lesson 3 of 4 in Safe Food on the Go. Students apply their understanding of food safety, healthy eating and sustainability to plan food and equipment for a specific outing. In groups, they make justified choices and produce a practical checklist that responds to dietary needs, portability, storage and available resources.

Learning intentions

Students will:

• analyse the needs and constraints of a particular outing.
• select suitable food, ingredients, equipment and storage options.
• justify choices using sensory, functional, nutritional, safety and sustainability considerations.
• collaborate to develop a practical food-and-equipment checklist.

Success criteria

• I can identify the food, equipment and storage needs of an outing.
• I can select food that is healthy, portable and suitable for safe storage.
• I can explain how my choices respond to dietary, environmental and practical needs.
• I can contribute to a clear, realistic group checklist.

Curriculum links

• Analyse how the sensory and functional properties of food influence healthy, sustainable food solutions.
• Select, justify, test and use suitable technologies, skills and processes, applying safety procedures.
• Analyse ethical, secure and sustainable food production and marketing decisions.
• Analyse needs and opportunities, and develop a design brief for a designed solution.

Lesson structure (60 minutes)

1. 0–5 min · Hook and recall. Open with the outing planning hook showing two contrasting picnic setups: one safe, practical and low-waste, and one unsafe and impractical. Students identify which setup they would trust and give one reason, then recall key food-safety considerations from lessons 1 and 2.

2. 5–13 min · Define the design challenge. Use the design challenge and planning criteria to introduce the brief: “Plan food and equipment for a group outing so that everyone can eat safely, healthily and comfortably, with minimal waste.” Explain that each group will receive or choose one context: a beach day, bushwalk, sporting carnival or excursion involving limited access to refrigeration. Students record the context and constraints on the outing planning worksheet.

3. 13–23 min · Teacher modelling and decision-making. Model one decision, such as choosing a chicken salad wrap or chickpea wrap for a warm-weather outing. Think aloud while considering dietary needs, nutrition, sensory appeal, portability, food spoilage, packaging, ice packs, utensils, water and waste. Students use the decision-making example to identify the functional property, safety issue and sustainability consideration behind each choice.

4. 23–43 min · Group planning task. Arrange 13 students into three or four groups, ensuring each group has a coordinator, food-and-nutrition checker, safety-and-storage checker and resources-and-sustainability checker; students may share roles. Distribute the outing planning worksheet and direct groups to plan a menu or snack selection and complete a checklist covering food, ingredients, dietary alternatives, cutlery, serving equipment, ice packs, containers, water, cleaning materials and waste management. Students must annotate at least five choices with reasons and identify one potential hazard with a control measure.

5. 43–53 min · Peer review and refinement. Display the peer-review questions and have groups exchange plans with a neighbouring group. Reviewers ask: “Will this food remain safe until eaten?”, “Can it be carried and served easily?”, “Does it meet likely dietary needs?”, “What waste will it create?” and “What resource has been overlooked?” Groups record one strength and two improvements before revising their checklist.

6. 53–60 min · Share and exit assessment. Invite each group to present its most important design decision and one safety or sustainability strategy. Finish with the plenary prompts and ask students to complete the final section of the individual reflection and exit questions: name one justified choice, one food-safety control and one change they would make before the outing. Preview that lesson 4 will use the plans to prepare, test or evaluate the proposed food solution.

Resources

• the complete outing planning slide deck
• the outing planning worksheet
• Scenario cards or projected outing contexts
• Whiteboard and markers
• Sample lunch containers, insulated bag, ice pack and reusable cutlery
• Food packaging examples, or photographs of packaging
• Food-allergy and dietary-needs information prepared by the teacher
• Group tables and role allocation list
• Sanitising wipes or hand hygiene supplies if handling sample equipment

Assessment

• Questioning during the hook and modelling checks whether students can connect food choices with sensory, functional, nutritional, safety and sustainability properties.
• Review group worksheets for relevant constraints, justified selections, realistic equipment lists, hazard controls and consideration of dietary needs.
• Use the individual exit questions to assess whether each student can justify a design decision and propose a practical improvement.

Differentiation

• Provide a word bank and sentence starters such as “We selected ___ because…”, “This food is suitable for storage because…” and “To reduce risk, we will…”.
• Offer groups a partially completed checklist, a choice of simpler outing contexts or a visual equipment bank. Read instructions aloud and allow students to record ideas through labelled drawings or speech-to-text.
• For EAL learners, pair key terms with photographs and permit collaborative discussion before writing. Check understanding of terms such as portable, perishable, dietary requirement and cross-contamination.
• Extend capable students by requiring a cost estimate, comparison of two menu options, consideration of food provenance or a contingency plan for weather, delayed eating or loss of refrigeration.