Title: Nutrient Counting

Other Curriculum Objectives that can be addressed by this lesson plan

English Language Arts: 2.1, 2.2, 4.1; Mathematics: (Gr 6) 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 6.3, 7.2; Healthful Living: (Gr. 6) 5.2

Grade: 6

Competency 2.2: Identify the difference between paper spreadsheets (e.g., gradebook, budget, sports statistics) and computer spreadsheets.

Measure 2.2.2: Given a table of the nutritional content of specific food items, discuss how it might be used if it were on a computer.

Materials Needed: A newspaper, novel, baseball scores, cooking recipe, picture, brochure, phone bill, set of instructions, and gradebook; transparency of the Nutrient Counting Illustration master copy; overhead projector; computer with a prepared spreadsheet file loaded (file -- Nutrient).

Time: One or two class sessions.

Terms: Spreadsheet, Column, Row

Grade 6 Glossary

Pre-Activities:

1. Show the class some examples of print information; e.g., a column of text from the newspaper, a novel, baseball scores, cooking recipe, picture, brochure, phone bill, set of instructions, gradebook. Include a table of information from a science textbook (nutritional data, statistics about the planets, data on motion, etc.). Ask the students to identify the examples that display information as a table with columns and rows.
2. Describe the examples that display information as a table of columns and rows as paper spreadsheets.
3. Ask the students to suggest the types of calculations that might be involved in each of the paper spreadsheets.
4. List the paper spreadsheet with the suggested calculations on the board.
5. Discuss whether a computer could do the calculations faster or more accurately than people could.

Activity:

1. Project a transparency of the Nutrient Counting Illustration black line master for the class to see.
2. Describe each of the columns:

   Item
   A food item being evaluated in terms of nutritional value.
   Qty.
   The quantity of each food item being evaluated.
   Protein, Vitamin C, ...
   The amount of each nutrient contained in the entered item of food.

3. Explain that a spreadsheet file of this information will calculate and display the amount of each nutrient delivered by the quantity of each food item. It will also calculate and display the total amount of nutrients.
4. Load the file Nutrient and demonstrate this application. Enter amounts of each food item in ounces and observe the vitamins delivered. Change the amounts and observe how the amounts of vitamins change.
5. Divide the class into groups of four students and ask each group to describe at least three types of people who might use this spreadsheet and how they might use it.
6. Ask a member of each group to report their findings.

Extensions

Ask each class member to write a letter to one of the people that they identified explaining how they might use this computer spreadsheet.

Given a grocery store checkout slip, have each student describe the difference between the paper slip and a computer version of a grocery store receipt.