To raise awareness of the needs of others who are unable to provide a balanced nutritious diet for their own families. Also to introduce the Heifer Project, which provides families with resources and education so they can have nutritious food and earn a living within their own communities.

The learners will:

• respond to Beatrice’s Goat.
• compare and contrast characters.
• list ways he/she can conserve resources (make choices) in the face of scarcity.
• create a poster advertising the benefits of Heifer International’s project.

Anticipatory Set:
Explain that you are going to read a true story about a girl named Beatrice who not only didn’t get three nutritious meals every day, but also did not have money to go to school. Read the story BEATRICE’S GOAT. Stop periodically as you read to ask how Beatrice is like them and different from them. (Find Uganda, where Beatrice lives, on the world map.)

• Tell the children that an organization named Heifer International gave Beatrice’s family the goat. Heifer International uses money that is donated by philanthropists (people who give time, talent or treasure in order to promote the common good).
  
   
• Contrast the two previous lessons on making healthy food choices with the concept that many people in the world do not have the choice of what to eat because they may not have food available at all.
  
   
• Show the video, “The Promise.” This video shows how Heifer International has helped improve the lives of two families—one of which is Beatrice’s—by giving them an animal and providing training for a year so that they can learn how to take care of the animal in their environment.
  
   
• After showing the video, have the students reflect on how the children in the video were similar and how they were different from each other. Tell the students to draw one difference and one likeness. Have students share their drawings with the other students and discuss what they drew.
  
   
• Ask students to explain how the families in the video changed their lives. What farming techniques did they learn and what did they do differently? Define stewardship as the wise use of resources. Discuss how the families that receive the animals are stewards.
  
   
• Introduce the economic concepts of scarcity (the lack of a commodity, such as money, food, education, housing, etc.) and opportunity cost (making a choice that eliminates another choice). Relate the concepts to personal issues: have the students list ways that they can conserve limited resources, such as not running the water too long or riding bikes instead of getting a car ride.
  
   
• Ask students to propose why Heifer International would work with the families for a year when they give the animals. (They want the families to be successful and they need to know how to care for the animals.) How would this project help the families to have a more balanced diet?
  
   
• Divide your class into groups of two or three students and give each group a sheet of 12” x 18” white drawing paper. Tell the groups to create a poster for the Heifer International Project. The poster will be an “advertisement” showing the nutritional, economic and environmental benefits to the families. Tell students to label their drawings with details about the project. Have groups present their posters to the class and then display them in the classroom or hallway.

• McBrier, Page. Beatrice’s Goat. New York: Atheneum books for Young Readers, 2001. ISBN: 0689824602
  
   
• The Promise. Heifer Project International, Produced by Dick Young Productions, Ltd., 1995. 10 min. Videocassette.
  
   
• The Hunger Site < http://www.thehungersite.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/CTDSites>
  June 13, 2003
  
   
• Feeding Minds, Fighting Hunger < http://www.feedingminds.org/> June 13, 2003
  
   
• World Hunger Year < http://www.worldhungeryear.org/default.asp> June 13, 2003
  
   
• World Food Day < http://www.fao.org/wfd/index_en.asp> June 13, 2003
  
   
• Read to Feed Program< http://www.readtofeed.org/> June 17, 2003
  
   
• Heifer International: Giving Programs < http://catalog.heifer.org/> June 17, 2003