Green Entrepreneurship 

The goal of this lesson is for students to learn about the history and production of chocolate, the practices, procedures, techniques, and strategies employed by a organic and fair trade chocolate company, and use that knowledge to work collaboratively on designing solutions to improve the company's business model and profits. A wide range of teaching modalities are employed during this project-based learning sequence, which speak to the variety of experiences that students will have. To effectively design solutions to improve the company's profitability, students learn and develop skills related to chocolate production (CTE Culinary Arts), Product Innovation and Design, marketing and advertisement (CTE Business and Finance; CTE Marketing, Sales, and Services), factory design (Building and Construction), and block coding (CTE Information and Communication Technologies; CTE Arts, Media, and Entertainment).    

In order to complete this unit in three weeks, instructors will need to commit a half day for each day of the program. This would be on average 1.5-2.5 hours each day (90 - 150 minutes) each day. The unit is an integrated unit, and will include science, history-social studies, health, literacy (reading, writing, listening & speaking), mathematical reasoning, and computer science. Additionally, the unit includes an emphasis on environmental literacy and career technical education.

• Module Overview (Teacher Document)

• Module Overview (Student Document)

• All Lesson Plans

• All Design Challenge Lessons

Learning Sequence

(Lessons (LS) and Design Challenges (DC))

Phase 1 (LS 1-4 & DC 1)

Unit and Project Introduction: This introduction builds foundational knowledge of the project and chocolate, and  includes team formation activities that support student success throughout the unit. 

Phase 2 (LS 5-8 & DC 2-4)

Research and Development (R&D): Students will investigate factors relevant to chocolate sourcing, and make important decisions about their chocolate bar based on market research. 

Phase 3 (LS 9-10 & DC 5-6)

Manufacturing: Students learn about factory operations including inputs and outputs, and machine upgrades, and make decisions about packaging. 

Phase 4 (LS 11 & DC 7-9)

Sales: Students learn about advertising and create two advertising prototypes (label and commercial).

Phase 5 (DC 10-11 & Pitch)

Investor Pitch: Students will pitch their new chocolate bar concept to a panel of investors (shark tank style changes). The pitch will include information from all phases of the unit: R&D, Manufacturing, Sales, etc.

This is the first lesson for the Chocolate Company unit, and serves as both an introduction to the project, and an introduction to the teams that students will be working on for the duration of the unit. Students will do activities that help the group formation process, and set a foundation for team success throughout the unit.

Lesson Plan

All Documents and Slide Decks (Google Folder)

During this phase-one-culminating learning segment, students will work with their group to brainstorm what their ideal chocolate bar would look like, and then prototype this bar by producing a drawn representation. Students will reflect on this prototype as they progress through the learning segments and re-evaluate their prototype to account for newly acquired knowledge based on socio-economic and nutritional content.

Lesson Plan

Prototyping your dream chocolate bar template

Learning segment three builds a foundational understanding of the basic needs of all plants and the plant life cycle from beans to plants to beans. This lesson comes prior to a focus on agriculture, which will be focused around how humans manipulate these basic needs and the life cycle to produce plants at mass.

Lesson Plan

Life Cycle of a Flowering Plant

Top cocoa producing countries in the world

The core purpose of this learning segment, how it fits into the greater unit, and key learning objectives: 

This lesson serves as the big picture overview to the entire process of how chocolate is made. Students will diagram the process in their notebook by the end of the lesson, and will refer back to this throughout the unit. The rest of the unit will dive into each of these stages in much more depth from a science and social studies perspective.

Lesson Plan

Chocolate Process Card Game Sort

This lesson will help students better understand the properties of chocolate and the science behind chocolate. Students will do a series of hands-on activities to investigate how the process of making chocolate requires at least as much matter and energy going in as you get out of your bar. Additionally, students will explore what happens when you mix chocolate into different products.

Lesson Plan

All Documents (Google Drive)

This section reinforces the idea that negative human actions negatively impact our land, water and biodiversity. Pesticides, water and air pollution negatively impact the land and agricultural practices, which, in turn, affect the health of the biosphere. We can process and mitigate our emotions related to the human impact on the Earth and the devastation to the biosphere through mindfulness and artistic expression.

Lesson Plan

All Documents and Slide Deck (Google Folder)

This learning segment is focused on the impact of chocolate production on people. In particular, the segment focuses on the growing and harvesting of chocolate and how this process impacts labor. Through simulations, students learn the concept of fair and unfair labor practices, and why Fair Trade Certification supports fair practices for farmers and workers. Students also learn about child labor, and explore why child labor goes against the rights of children. The lesson helps students better understand the values of the parent chocolate company. 

Lesson Plan

All Documents (Google Folder)

Work with your team members to figure out the cost of raw ingredients for each type of bar (see definitions below) by adding up the ingredients in each column.

Student Worksheet (Cost Benefit Analysis and Justification)

Learning Segment Seven builds a foundational understanding of the purpose and structure of the nutrition and ingredients label, and how they can help us make informed decisions about the foods we eat. Students will also consider the benefits and drawbacks to “whole” and artificial ingredients in foods. Students will use this new knowledge to make a decision about the additional ingredient in their chocolate bar, and to begin the process of designing the ingredients label for their bar. 

Lesson Plan

The purpose of this lesson is to help students better understand how producers of goods and services meet the needs of their consumers. 

Lesson Plan

Your Team needs to decide how many additional ingredients you will be including in your customized chocolate bar. Your team will make this decision based on nutrition, market research, and costs. Below is a table to calculate the costs of final raw ingredients, and space to explain why you chose these additional ingredients. 

Additional Ingredients Design Challenge

This design challenge is the culminating activity for Learning Segment Two. Students have been learning about growing cocoa beans, fair trade farming, ingredient sourcing and package labels, with the purpose of designing and creating their own chocolate bar. For this Design Challenge, students will draw a top-down and cross sectional view of their prototype bar, and then create it using the chocolate and ingredients of their choice. The prototype chocolate bar is the application of what they have learned and the decisions they have made. 

Prototyping Your Chocolate Bar

Lesson Plan

All Documents (Google Folder)

Your Team needs to make the following manufacturing decisions for your chocolate company: the cost of packaging, energy source for powering the factory, and the cost of labor (how much factory employees are paid). 

Cost of Production Design Challenge

Based on marketing research, students will determine which additional ingredient(s) will be added to their chocolate bar to increase company profits. Once this has been determined, the chocolate factory must be upgraded to include a machine to add this/these ingredient(s) to the chocolate prior to molding, packaging and shipping. Students will determine the machine to be added and represent this machine within the factory schematic. Additionally, students will use Hummingbird Kits to model any of the factory machines present within the chocolate factory.

Factory Machines

Learning Segment Eleven provides an introduction to the basics of advertising and builds a foundational understanding of the functions and hurdles of developing effective advertisements. Students will apply what they learned from the introduction to advertising, and develop advertisements for their chocolate bar and company.

Lesson Plan

Slide Deck

Students will prototype the front label for their chocolate bar.

Making a Chocolate Bar Label

Students will design and code a commercial for their chocolate bar.

Making a Chocolate Bar Commercial

Your Team needs to make decisions related to advertising and marketing your bar. These types of decisions have to do with the company’s values and sourcing practices, and how to make this information known to the public. In some cases you can advertise with certifications on your chocolate bar label, and in other cases, you can use the information in your label or commercial.

Advertising Costs Design Challenge

Master Accounting Sheet

Students will develop and practice their team pitch. 

Putting the Pitch Together