Educator Resources:
Teaching Potatoes

Suitable for students of all ages, "Planet Potato" is an interactive 40 minute program that explores the history and social influence of the world's most important vegetable. Along the way audiences learn where it comes from, how it grows, ways it is eaten around the world (other than fried) and how potatoes have transformed the way we all live.

Using museum artifacts, objects, toys and other props, Tom Hughes takes a look at how history and social studies have been influenced through food and how geography has determined what people eat. He engages students directly, inviting their active participation in the program, with role-playing, assisting in math and science demonstrations. ( No matter what people eat, it all ends up in the same place, the digestive system or gut. At the close of each program, using a funny prop, Tom shows how what we eat really does matter.)

All programs mesh with and support National Education Standards in Social Studies, History and Geography. They are interdisciplinary, (selected math and science concepts are included,) multi-cultural and hands on, with an emphasis on cross curriculum global awareness. The programs enrich and bolster current school curricula.

STUDENTS WILL:
--Never look at food, especially the potato, the same way again.
--Understand important issues like globalization, using French fries as example.
--Be active participants in role-playing, math and science demonstrations.
--Understand that their food choices have important consequences.
--Be motivated to lead active, healthy, intellectually engaged lives.

Here are some scenes from the program "Planet Potato"

For more information on booking "Planet Potato"
or any of our other educational outreach programs, please click here.

Read here what teachers and parents have to say about our programs.

Our potato books &
educational materials

The Great Potato Book by Meredith Sayles Hughes & Tom Hughes, published by Macmillan, NY, 1986. The history of potatoes illustrated with artifacts and images from The Potato Museum collections. Chapters include: the living potato; the powerful potato; the delicious potato; the valuable potato; the well-traveled potato and the playful potato.

Buried Treasure, by Meredith Sayles Hughes (Lerner Publications, 1998). Potatoes in space? Super-nutritious carrots? A 1,500-pound tapioca pudding? This lively book helps students connect root gardening with history, biology, cultural studies, and more with intriging historical anecdotes, in-depth views of planting and harvesting, and detailed diagrams of these important vegetables. Packed with colorful illustrations and photos.

Potato Power Poster &
"What Can You Teach with a Potato?" Lesson Plans

"Potato Power:
Potatoes Fuel People, Animals & Machines"

Because of its high starch content, the potato is an important human energy source. This same starch can be converted to ethanol alcohol, a gasoline substitute which can be used as an alternative fuel. The Germans used the potato as a fuel source during World War II. Farmers in Canada have used potato fuels to power their farm equipment.

Lesson plans included on the back of the poster include:
--research project about industrial use of potatoes for alterntive fuels;
--potato vocabulary search;
--potato printing art activity;
--making mashed potatoes and potato chips;
--proving potatoes have starch;
--small container potato growing;
--observating botanical features of a potato.

All these items and more available at our shop.

EXHIBITS:
Amazing Potato
Our Potato Gallery
Potato Hall of Fame
The Literary Potato
Save Our Spuds

POTATO TALK
Our Blog

Total Tater Experience

Listen to spud songs while visiting The Potato Museum online.

Here's how:
File>New>Window>
>Potato Radio>select song>wait for music to start>minimize window>restore www.potatomusum.com

To listen to more songs, restore Potato Radio window and repeat process.

After your Potato Museum visit, check out Potato Engine and other favorite potato links.

Potato Radio & Potato Engine are creations of
JEFFREY ALLEN PRICE

In the space of just 400 years, the potato has become a staple crop of many people around the world whose antecedents had subsisted perfectly well upon grain crops for anything up to 4000 years. The reason for this somewhat surprising development is that the potato is the best all-around bundle of nutrition known to mankind. Its ration of carbohydrate to protein is such that anyone eating enough potatoes to satisfy their energy requirements will automatically obtain most of the protein they require. Furthermore, the "biological value" of potato protein (an index of the nitrogen absorbed from a food and retained by the body for growth and maintenance) is 73, second only to eggs at 96; just ahead of soybeans at 72, but far superior to corn (maize) at 54 and wheat at 53. Potatoes also contain significant amounts of essential vitamins (the British, in fact, used to derive 30% of their vitamin C intake from potatoes.) Exceptional productivity is another virtue of the potato. A field of potatoes produces more energy per hectare per day than a field of any other crop. Potatoes grow well from sea level to 14,000 feet on a wider variety of soils, under a wider range of climatic conditions, than any other staple food. The potato matures faster in 90 to 120 days, and will provide small but edible tubers in just 60 days. All in all, the potato is about the world's most efficient means of converting plant, land, water and labour into a palatable and nutritious food.

John Reader, Man on Earth, 1998