Saltus Upper Primary students in 4E have been learning about chocolate.

Why chocolate? Director of Saltus Upper Primary, Tracy Renaud, explained: “This year, all year levels piloted a topic from the International Primary Curriculum.

“Years three and four chose the unit entitled, ‘Chocolate’. This gave them an opportunity to integrate the topic into all subject areas.

“The children have thoroughly enjoyed learning about where chocolate comes from and how it is made.”

During assembly, 4E students explored where chocolate comes from, how it is made, some interesting facts, and also compared the different types.

They also learned about “fair trade” — giving the people who make the things you buy a fair price for their work. When you buy something with a Fair Trade logo on it, you know that a fair amount of the money is going towards helping the community where it came from. Examples of fair trade products can include chocolate, fruit, coffee and sugar.

The students shared a poem about chocolate and also sang a song. Here are some of the facts about chocolate shared by the youngsters:

• Chocolate produces a special chemical in the brain called serotonin. Serotonin helps to elevate your mood and this makes you feel happy after you eat chocolate.

• It takes about 400 cacao beans to create one pound of chocolate.

• In the United States, 71 per cent of shoppers prefer milk chocolate over other flavours of chocolate. During a taste test in 4E, they discovered that most of them preferred dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate or white chocolate.

• Do you ever wonder why chocolate melts easily in your mouth? This is because the melting point of the cocoa butter component is slightly below the human body’s average temperature.

• Shoppers around the world spend more than $20 billion every year on chocolate products.

• Cacao beans come are usually grown by farmers in warm countries close to the equator such as Brazil, Ghana, Cameroon, Ecuador and Malaysia. These countries have the perfect climate for the cacao trees to grow.

Some of this information was found at www.2020site.org/fun-facts/Fun-Chocolate-Facts.html

Check out the video from The Rainforest Alliance that was shown during the assembly, www.safeshare.tv/w/yjWmtRTTAD