The Little Classroom Up the Back: The Great Tomato Sauce Investigation

Over the next few weeks students will be conducting a predominantly mathematical investigation into different brands of tomato sauce. This will allow them to focus on nutrition information panels, gain an understanding of milligrams, grams, unit pricing, data collection, the program Excel and the ingredients of tomato sauce, most notably the quantities of sugar, fat and sodium . There are ten brands under scrutiny some of which claim to be organic and healthy. I purchased ten types to make use of percentages a little easier for students. They will also focus on kilojoules. The Spelling Bingo words for this week and next will be words students will be using in their investigations. See Spelling Bingo Sauce Words blog entry for this list:
http://thelittleclassroomuptheback.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/spelling-bingo-words-for-rest-of-july.html

The sauces selection is:
Outback Spirit Real Australian Sauce
MasterFoods Tomato Sauce (with reduced salt)
Rosella Tomato Sauce(prepared from the choicest ingredient...apparently)
Fountain Classic Tomato Sauce
Select Tomato Sauce ( a classic rich tomato sauce)
Heinz Tomato Ketchup (Grown not made)
Three 333 Threes Family Recipe Tomato Sauce (Premium Australian Produce)
Organic Tomato Sauce (Gluten free)
Black & Gold Tomato Sauce (Quality Assured)
Johnno's Home Made Tasmanian Brand Tomato Sauce

I have written the cost of each sauce on the base of the bottle and students will need to work out price per 100 grams.

Ten brands of tomato sauce

Pre-investigation:

Students read about information panels and learn how to decode them

As a class we look at mean, mode, median and the concept of averages and how they can be applied in different situations.

Steps:

1. Class pose the mathematical questions we will be exploring

2. Design a cover page with a catchy heading to sum up the investigation and clearly state what is under investigation

3. Write up Background Information

4. Collect Data using tables looking specifically at fat, sodium, sugar and unit pricing and whatever is needed to answer the posed questions

5. Enter data into Excel

6. Generate graphs comparing the sauces

7. Write up a discussion

8. Reference and acknowledgments page

Watch this space for further developments.

Today, July the 3rd students had half an hour to write up their background for their investigation. We talked at length what should go into the background information.

Update 15/0512