Interactive Projects

Overview
In this activity, students will compare and contrast the nutrient content of various fast-food items and meals. They will accomplish this task by visiting an interactive Web site that provides a nutritional breakdown of such foods in terms of both restaurant name and food type. Students will begin by applying a set of simple mathematical formulas to compute their specific nutrient needs based on demographics such as weight and physical activity level. They will then determine which fast foods meet those needs.

Objectives

• To use a set of guidelines at a World Wide Web site to compute personal nutritional needs.
• To compare and contrast the nutrient values of different fast foods.
• To understand what changes, if any, need to be made in their eating habits.

Getting Started
Ask for a show of hands of students who have eaten in a fast-food restaurant in the past week or month. Instruct them to keep their hands raised, and ask how many students can identify the nutrient value of the last fast-food meal they consumed. Write nutrient on the board, and ask students to attempt to define the term in their own words. Explain or remind students that all foods contain varying amounts of six main nutrients--carbohydrates, fat, protein, vitamins, minerals, and water. Tell them that to maintain total health, every individual needs to balance the intake of these nutrients in well-defined ways. Observe that the site they are about to visit will help students isolate those ways. Once students have logged on, help them take full advantage of the site's potential by instructing them to scroll to the bottom of the main page to view the total contents before beginning the assignment.

Classroom Follow-up
Ask students to share what they learned from their in-depth look at fast food. Encourage interested students to work as a team to summarize their findings by creating a two-column poster that lists healthful and less healthful fast foods and/or fast-food purveyors. If the classroom computer contains either spreadsheet or charting software, volunteers can be asked to import or key in nutritional data from the Web site for selected fast-food items and include pie graphs for these items in the poster. The completed poster should be displayed in a prominent location in the classroom or school hallway.