A Calorie Counter: Fast Food Restaurants & Nutrition Facts Compared

Details

Activity Description

Use this site to teach students to read and understand fast food nutrition facts. The site allows users to search and compare the nutrition facts of popular fast food restaurant menu items. Use the attached Word document for student to enter comparison data.

Preparation

1. Either print copies of the comparison chart (see Example Document 1 above) or place a copy of this document on each computer in a computer lab. Students can use the computer to enter the data they glean from the Web site.
2. Pre-teach needed grammar: comparatives and superlatives and comparing words (more, less, etc). Teach necessary food label vocabulary (healthy, fat,sodium, cholesterol, carbohydrates, calories, protein, etc.).
3. Make sure that the site is not blocked at your school and practice using the site yourself to anticipate challenges and difficulties.
4. Create comparison questions for students to answer verbally after completing their comparison charts.

How-To

1. Have students visit the site (above), scroll down the page to see the comparison charts.
2. Have students select two fast food menu items to scrutinize and have them choose 3 different restaurants to compare. They can copy the stats from the site onto their paper or electronic comparison chart.
3. Explain that they need to be ready to answer comparison questions such as "Which food item has the highest calorie count?"

Teacher Tips

• Model how to compare the nutrition facts before having students work on answering questions.
• The tables are sortable. Selecting a category (calories, fat, trans fat, etc.) will sort the data in that column from lowest to highest. Selecting it again will sort it from highest to lowest.
• Any questions you may have about anything you see in this fast food comparison is most likely answered at the bottom of the page or in the "Notes" of each comparison. Be sure to check it out for clarifications on anything that may seem unclear.
• The site has advertisements. Explain to students where they should not click their mouse, because it will take them to other sites.

More Ways

• Other ways to do this project is to have groups make presentations in front of the class instead of working on it individually and reporting as a whole class.
• They could use PowerPoint to do a class presentation using charts & graphs.
• If students know how to use Excel, you could also do this activity using that software instead of Word.

Program Areas

• ABE: Adult Basic Education

Levels

• Low
• Intermediate
• High
• All Levels

Documents

• Fast Food Restaurant Nutrition Chart accessible.docx - Fast Food Restaurant Nutrition Chart accessible

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