Just the week before Easter I showcased a Willy Wonka themed week to celebrate Roald Dahls 100 birthday and to celebrate all things chocolate.
There were a number of activities that students could take part in such as choosing a mystery book, guessing the number of chocolates in the box, reading about the story of chocolate and entering a quiz. However the most popular activity had to be spinning the wheel. My father built a large spinning wheel with an assortment of 12 coloured segments. Any student who wrote a book review got to spin the wheel. If the marker stopped at the colour they chose, they won an Easter egg.
The activity proved to be hugely popular. 85 students wrote book reviews and some of these were lucky enough to go home with an Easter egg. Although the general theme was fun, I also showcased an exhibition on how chocolate is made. I thought it was important to highlight the darker side to chocolate: child slavery. The majority of the word’s cocoa is grown in West Africa where it is produced on small farms by farmers living in extreme poverty. This often leads to child slavery. Due to public pressure many of the large chocolate manufacturers have introduced sustainability programs to try to address this problem.
Unfortunately it will be difficult to eradicate it completely but hopefully these programs will help the problem in some way.