Cross-Curricular Project 2

You Are What You Eat

Introduction
Nutrition experts often recommend that you include meats, such as beef, in your diet. Beef is a good source of protein and other nutrients. Did you know that Texas is the number one state in producing cattle? The table below shows the number of cattle in the top five states.

In this project, you will be exploring how rational numbers are related to nutrition.

The Task
In your new job as a nutritionist at a middle school, you want to design a brochure or Web page for students at the school and their parents. You think that students at your school are eating at fast–food restaurants often and need to be aware of healthy choices. You want to present facts about fast—food meals and the nutritional value of menu items. In the brochure, or on the Web page, you need to show readers the nutritional value of fast—food meals typically ordered by teenagers and also offer some wise choices for fast—food meals. Be sure to include the following items in the brochure or Web page.

• the total Calories, grams of fat, and amount of sodium for five meals that a typical student would order from at least three different fast—food restaurants;
• one entire day's meals, including breakfast, lunch, and dinner, from at least two different restaurants. The total Calories, grams of fat, and amount of sodium for these meals must be less than or equal to the requirements for a teenager;
• other information about proper nutrition suitable for a teenager. This might include the food pyramid, requirements for other nutrients, or any other information you think will be informative for students and parents.

• Find data about the nutritional value of menu items at fast-food restaurants. For help, try these Web sites.
  www.mcdonalds.com
  www.yahoo.com and search for fast-food restaurants and nutrition guides
  www.wendys.com
  www.tacobell.com
  www.burgerking.com/Food/nutrition/NutritionalTable/index.html
  www.burgerking.com/Food/Nutrition/NutritionWizard/index.aspx
• Find data about general nutrition to present in your project. For help try these Web sites.
  www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/foodlab.html
  www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/fdpyrmid.html
  www.cfsan.fda.gov/list.html
  www.education-world.com and search for nutrition
• Find the number of grams of fat, the number of Calories, and the milligrams of sodium required per day for a typical teenager.
• Use the data about the nutritional value of fast food items to find the fat, Calories, and sodium in five typical meals that a teenager would order.
• Use the data about the nutritional value of fast food items to recommend a one day's menu that meets, but does not exceed, the daily requirements for Calories, fat, and sodium for a teenager.
• Be creative. Add some additional data, information, or even pictures to your brochure or Web page. For other data and information, try these Web sites.
  www.usatoday.com
  www.infoplease.com
  

Guidance

Here are some additional questions and ideas you may want to consider for your project.

1. What is the food pyramid? How can it help people plan a nutritious diet?
2. How many Calories are burned during different types of physical activity, such as running or skiing?
3. How can you determine the number of Calories that you need in one day to remain healthy?
4. How could fast—food restaurants help consumers to have a more healthy diet?
5. Interview the owner or manager of a fast—food restaurant. Find out what types of expenses must be paid when operating a restaurant.

Conclusion

• Present your project to your class or at a family night.
• Present the information on a Web page. Have other students critique your project and help you to make improvements to your project.
• Make several hardcopies of your Web page or copies of your brochure. Have several adults examine your information and suggest ways to improve your project.
• Extend your project to include information about exercise and the number of Calories burned by various activities.

Questions

Lesson 4—4
Julie Ann frequently eats at fast-food restaurants. She used the Internet to find the number of grams of fat in each of these items at one popular restaurant. She determined that her daily allowance of fat grams should not exceed 65.

1. Suppose she eats a chicken sandwich. Write a fraction in simplest form to show what portion of her daily allowance of fat grams the sandwich represents.
   
2. Select three different items in the table such that the total number of fat grams is less than 3/4 of her daily allowance of grams of fat.
   
3. Is it possible to find a combination of the foods in the table that would represent exactly 65 grams of fat? If so, list the combination. (Any food can be used more than once.)

Lesson 5—9
A certain fast—food restaurant serves sandwiches with the number of Calories shown in the table. For Exercises 1 and 2, round answers to the nearest whole number, when necessary.

1. Find the mean, median, and mode of the Calories in these six sandwiches.
2. Suppose the restaurant wants customers to think that their sandwiches are very low in Calories. Which measure of central tendency would the restaurant prefer to use in their advertisements? Explain your reasoning.

Teacher Notes and Answers
You Are What You Eat

TEACHER NOTES
In this project, students will investigate the nutritional values of foods that can be purchased at fast-food restaurants. They will be finding the Calories, grams of fat, and amount of sodium in various foods. If you prefer, you can extend this project and have them look at other nutrients, such as calcium and protein. They would then need to find the recommended amount of that nutrient needed in their diets by researching Web sites with nutritional information. Another extension for the project is to find activities that would burn an appropriate number of Calories for a teenager in a day. Several Web sites are included in the project that would help students find this information.

If you prefer to avoid fast-food restaurants in this project, you can have students use foods from the supermarket that have nutrition labels.

The Guidance section of the WebQuest contains questions that would be good for a whole-class discussion and for providing interdisciplinary connections, particularly science and health. If you prefer, have each student research one of the questions and add the information they find to the final presentation of their WebQuest.

Several Web sites are included in the project to help students in completing the WebQuest. Encourage students to find additional sites and to share those sites with other students. There are many more fast-food restaurants that feature Web sites than are listed in this project.

Students will work on this project in Unit 2.

ANSWERS

LESSON 4-4

1. 
2. Sample answer: chicken nuggets, small fries, and onion rings;
   
   
3. Sample answer: Yes; one combination is chicken nuggets, 2 small fries, onion rings, and chocolate pie.

LESSON 5-9

1. mean: 330; median: 313; mode: 200
   
   
2. They would use the mode because that would show that there are only 200 Calories in a sandwich.