A Donut Investigation

Objective

Students will investigate the intriguing question: does a donut or a salad have more sugar? Using an image from an article, they'll determine if the photo is true or misleading, how they might add to it, and how they could create their own version.

Students will use the big idea "limited facts can lead to the wrong conclusions" to guide them in this investigation.

My findings (these may change over time):

• Krispy Kreme Original Glazed: 10g
• Orange Juice: 22g or 2.2 donuts.
• Yogurt: 20g or 2 donuts
• Vitamin Water: 32g or 3.2 donuts
• California Pizza Kitchen's Thai Crunch Salad: 51g or 5.1 donuts
• Odwalla Drink: 50 g or 5 donuts

Here is the original article.

Steps

1. Students rank how much they trust the donut image.
2. Then they check the math, using ratios to determine if the original image is accurate.
3. They choose three new food items to compare, looking up the sugar content, then creating donut ratios for each.
4. Finally, they redo the original image, choosing a new nutrient to use as the comparison.
5. Students will update their original belief of how much they trust the image.

Resources

• The donut image
• Do you trust this image? (PDF)
• Do you trust this image? (Google Slides)
• Remaining worksheets (PDF)
• Remaining worksheets (Google Slides)