Lesson Overview

What makes the cranberry a useful product worth growing?

Lesson Plan:

Overview
Background
Materials
Preparation
Step-by-Step

What makes a cranberry a cranberry?  What about its qualities make it a valuable part of the American diet and culture? How are cranberry-based products like and different from the raw product? Answering these questions can help draw students into the study of cranberries.

This lesson orients students to the Exploring Cranberries Curriculum by inviting them to get to know and appreciate cranberries. By utilizing all five senses, they explore the nature of cranberries as whole fruits—raw materials, in fact, that are later processed for many different products. Students wrap up the lesson by connecting cranberry properties to the properties of various cranberry products.  Thus the lesson creates a bridge between the cranberry itself and the themes of the curriculum, including agriculture.

This lesson also integrates nicely into technology studies in a social studies or science context; as students study the cranberry and related products, they are considering the properties of a raw material (cranberry), its processed products, and why each is considered valuable.