Valentine’s Day may be this week, but the candy we celebrate with has been available in stores for about a month!

Despite the fact that we observe Valentine’s Day for a single day, our love for sweets boosts candy sales around this time every year. In the United States, it’s common to give and receive chocolates throughout the month of February.

This is a great time of year to celebrate the connection between food and love. Without food, plants and animals cannot grow and prosper; and without love, food production could lack thoughtful consideration for the environment and the needs of plants and animals.

Get your students talking about this connection by playing National Geographic Education‘s Planet Food game in your classroom! By exploring the world through food, your students will learn that it takes hard work and great decision-making skills to transform a lowly seed into a box of chocolates.

This two-part interactive game introduces the concepts of interdependence and globalization through the geography of food. In the “Make a Meal” challenge, students fill their plates with food containing ingredients from around the world. This part of the interactive shows students how to map their meals to show where the food they eat traveled from to get to their tables.

The “Chocolate Challenge” gives students a glimpse into the world of chocolate production. Videos provide different values and points of view so students can use critical-thinking and geographic decision-making skills as they work on making their own bar of chocolate.

Students earn badges on their journey to discover surprising relationships that food creates between countries all over the globe. Collect all the badges and win a wallpaper for your classroom computer!

What can your students learn about food through this interactive? How will their understanding impact the decisions they make when choosing something to eat?

TEACHERS’ TOOLKIT

More related resources from National Geographic Education

Interactive: Planet Food

Interactive: What the World Eats

Collection: Food