Grade 2 — Mathematics: Data Analysis of Eating Habits

Overview

Students collect, display (concretely and pictorially), and analyze data about their eating habits.

Activate

Students take and print digital images of food in their lunch boxes. [Gather and Make Sense]  Class discusses how foods could be categorized. Students sort images and post on bulletin board.

Teacher Tip:
Encourage students to photograph as many varied examples of food as possible and not to duplicate identical foods. The students may use any categorization they choose, including the Canada's Food Guide if they are already familiar with it.

Suggestions for Assessment:
Observe sorting skills used to identify unique characteristics within a set to determine which students need differentiation and/or appropriate scaffolding.

With students, construct assessment criteria for what makes a correct concrete graph and pictograph. Throughout the grade 2 data analysis process, use the Focused Observation Form to focus on students' growing competence as they gather and record data and construct and interpret concrete graphs and pictographs to solve problems.

Acquire

Discuss differences between "everyday" and "sometime" foods. Class sorts their bulletin board photographs into the two categories. Students make  a clipart image pictograph of 10 of their favourite foods using "everyday" and "sometime" categories  and write a sentence stating in which category most of their choices are found. [Produce to Show Understanding, Gather and Make Sense]

Teacher Tips:
Avoid clip art formatting difficulties by using multimedia presentation software (such as PowerPoint) rather than a word processor.
Use the Canada's Food Guide to find definitions of "everyday" and "sometime" foods.

Support Files:
Everyday and Sometime Foods Sample
An "Excel"ent Way to Create Pictographs
Creating Pictographs in PowerPoint

Suggestions for Assessment:
Recorded focused observations: Determine if students sort correctly into appropriate categories, are able to explain the reason for the placements, and are able to write an accurate concluding statement from the data.

Discuss food examples and categories in Canada's Food Guide. Students use tallies, charts, checks, etc. to keep track of food group choices eaten for one day and enter the data in a given spreadsheet [Gather and Make Sense]. Students write a sentence/paragraph telling how their diet compared to the Canada Food Guide recommendations. [Produce to Show Understanding]

Teacher Tip:
Canada Food Guide recommendations for grade 2 students would be the lower number of servings for the following; Grain Products 5-12 servings, Vegetables and Fruits 5-10 servings, Milk Products 2-4 servings, Meat and Alternatives 2-3 servings. Use the NWT Food Guide versions if geographically appropriate.

Support Files:
My Food Choices Sample

Suggestions for Assessment:
Recorded focused observations: Determine if students sort correctly into appropriate categories, are able to explain the reason for the placements, and are able to answer correctly the question about their eating habits.

Apply

Brainstorm with students categories of drinks. Use the given graph to discuss the amount of sugar found in soft drinks and the impact this has on a good diet. Individual students use tallies, charts, checks, etc to keep track of what they drink over a period of days and then represent it in a pictograph [Produce to Show Understanding]. In small groups, students share their graphs, see how many of their drinks fit into the "other" category, and discuss whether their findings are acceptable for a good diet.

Teacher Tip:
Categories might include milk, juice, water, other. The pictograph size will restrict the number of days of data gathered. Clarification of how fruit drinks qualify as a CFG food group and negative implications of large quantities of "other " non-nutritional drinks should take place in class discussion.

Suggestions for Assessment:
Target assessment on only a few of the many tagged outcomes and descriptors in this summative activity.
Recorded focused observations or Interview: Determine if students keep track of and sort correctly into appropriate categories, are able to explain the reason for the placements, or are correctly able to answer the question about their drinking habits.