homework - Meatless Mondays in schools?

Click HERE to watch the video. Read the story. Answer the questions.

Story:

East Village, NY (3/1/2010) - Pasta, veggie burgers, apples, oranges and salad. It's a typical Monday spread at the East Village Community School, all of which is vegetarian.

"It's kind of fun that we don't have any meat in our schools on that one day," said East Village Community School student Maizy Greenberg.

The three schools in the building are among the first in the city to adopt Meatless Mondays.
 The idea is to teach kids about healthy, plant-based food options.

Health officials say it's good for the kids' health and good for the planet, since industrial meat production may be one of the causes of climate change.

"There is a need for students to be healthy and parents know that and we have some very active parents who are interested as much as the staff, to provide good nutritional options for students," said East Village Community School principal Robin Williams.


"Teaches kids to be more careful what they eat and be more thoughtful and be more green," said East Village Community School student Alexia Siebers.
Parents whose children attend the school said it was easy to make the change.

"We looked at the menus and said why are these children eating meat everyday? It's really not healthy for them and it's not environmentally conscious to do this and we asked our school's food manager, who was there at our meeting, can we have meatless Mondays and they said yes," Children's Workshop School parent Elizabeth Puccini.

In Baltimore, Maryland, the whole public school system has gone meatless on Mondays -- something Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer would like to see adopted in New York City.

"1 out of 5 kindergartners in this city are overweight, meaning that already that starting out their lives they are classified as obese. And the reason is because their diet is leading them to an unhealthy lifestyle and we want to change that," Stringer said.

The DOE's office of school food said Monday it's reviewing the idea of starting each week without meat in every cafeteria in the city.

Questions:

1) Where did this story take place?

2) When did this story take place?

3) What are Meatless Mondays?

4) Why do these people want us to have Meatless Mondays?

5) In which city has the whole school system gone meatless on Mondays?

6) How many kindergarteners are overweight in this city?

7) What do you think? Should all city schools go without meat on Mondays? Why or why not?