"The world has enough for man's need, but not for man's greed."
-Mahatma Ghandi
 

Teacher's Notes

Introduction

Task

Resources

Process

Evaluation

Conclusion

 

Introduction

How many times have you said, "I'm starving!" Maybe after a long day at school, after being out with friends or after a basketball game or other sports event? The answer to your problem, however, is probably no farther away than the school cafeteria, fast food restaurant, or home refrigerator.

 When you are really starving and food supplies first start to run out, you suffer from severe and racking pangs of hunger. These do not last. However, in a few days the pains will go. To find the energy to walk about and search or beg for food, you now must rely on your reserves of body fat. Depending upon how much body fat you had when the food ran out, these reserves may last a week or two or three, but in the end they too will be exhausted. The only option left to your body is to use up the energy reserves contained in your muscles. This process leaves you listless and depressed, too tired to do anything. Around you, people, especially children, are starting to die. As your body weight falls and your limbs become shrunken and emaciated, your personality may also undergo severe changes where you may fly into irrational uncontrolled rages or become totally apathetic as death approaches. Starving is a most unpleasant way to die.

Tragically, for almost 800 million people in poor countries or deprived areas of the world, going hungry is a daily event. In America alone, some 30 million people are undernourished. Fifteen to twenty million people die each year of hunger-related causes, including diseases brought on by lowered resistance due to malnutrition. Three out of every four of these deaths are children. And yet, there is no good reason why anyone in the world should be short of food. Enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person per day worldwide--enough to make most people fat!

SO WHY ARE PEOPLE STARVING?

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