Objectives:

1. Students will recognize the parts of a food label and how to interpret them.
2. Students will rank various cereals based on amount of fat, carbohydrate, protein, calories, and vitamins & minerals.
3. Students will research fat, carbohydrate, protein, calories, and vitamins & minerals are important in a person’s diet and how they affect the body.
4. Students will determine which cereal has the greatest health benefits based on their research.

Instructional Input:

1. Show students overhead of a food label.
2. Point out the features of the food label:

1. Serving size and servings per container.
2. Calories
3. Percent daily values of vitamins and minerals
4. Where to find measurements of fat, carbohydrate, protein, protein
5. Difference between cereal w/milk and cereal without milk.
1. Guided Practice:
1. Ask several students to find specific information (w/o milk) such as:

1. How many grams of fat are in this cereal?
2. What is the percent daily value of Vitamin C?
3. How many vitamins & minerals have a greater than 10% value?
4. How much protein is in this cereal?

1. Show the articles that students will be reading in their groups. Tell them that they are to answer questions including the following information in their articles:

1. The definition of their assigned topic.
2. How it is used in the body
3. Any other information they think is important

1. Tell students that they will be making a bar graph of the amount of their assigned topic in each cereal. Using two or three different cereals, model filling in the spreadsheet for each topic (i.e. grams of fat, grams of protein, number of calories, grams of carbohydrate, number of vitamins & minerals w/greater than 10% daily value) and making the graph using the graphing software.

1. Break students into groups of 4-5 and assign each group a topic.
2. Give each group 2-3 cereals and a blank spreadsheet. Using the food labels, they fill in the information for their topic. The information desired will be written on the blank spreadsheet.
3. After about 5 minutes rotate the cereals to another group and continue filling in the table. Continue until all groups have seen every cereal.
4. Have one student from the group create the graph on the computer and print it out.
5. Give the group members not at the computer the article about their topic and give them time to read and answer the questions. They should also note which cereal ranked the best in their assigned topic.
6. Reorganize students into discussion groups with at least one person from each of the previous groups.
7. Each group should decide which cereal is the healthiest cereal. The "experts" on each topic should share which cereal ranked the best in their category and the entire groups can decide among those cereals.

Evaluation:

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