Look at this empty drinks can. How many teaspoons of sugar do you think were hiding inside when it was full? Hold up your fingers to show your guess.
Today we become label detectives. We will read the numbers on packaging, turn grams of sugar into teaspoons, and rank everyday drinks and snacks fairly.
That can has a secret panel of numbers: the nutrition label. That is our detective evidence for sugar and salt.
Grams are hard to picture, so we turn sugar into teaspoons: about 4 grams fills one level spoon. If a drink has 20 grams of sugar, how many teaspoons is that?
Later we will only rank drinks with drinks, and snacks with snacks. Picture a tiny juice carton next to a huge bottle: the bottle can look "worse" just because it is bigger. A fair ranking uses the same unit each time, for example sugar per 100 ml for every drink.
We will predict how many teaspoons of sugar hide in each everyday drink, then reveal the answer together on the board.
For each drink: call out your prediction first. After we reveal, we will turn grams into teaspoons and notice any label claims that might fool us.
Sugar detective: drinks
Your group gets three clean empty packs of everyday drinks and snacks, and a paper Investigation Journal page to write on. The card below sets out the order of work.
Handle the packs safely: they are clean and empty, so there is nothing to taste and nothing to open. Tell your teacher if anyone at your table has a food allergy, and wash your hands when you finish.
Every pack needs its sugar written down first, because that is what we rank later; salt only needs one number, so find it quickly and move on. Write the unit beside every number, and keep the packs on the table in front of you, because the class lines come next.
Now we put all our packs in order, from the least sugar to the most. We make two lines, because drinks are measured in millilitres and snacks in grams: the drinks line uses sugar per 100 ml, and the snacks line uses sugar per 100 g.
- Write each pack's sugar per 100 ml or per 100 g big on a sticky note, with its unit, and stick it on the pack.
- When your group is called, bring all your packs to the front. Put each one on its line: drinks on the drinks line, snacks on the snacks line.
- Find its place by its number: smaller numbers go towards LEAST, bigger numbers towards MOST. Say the number out loud as you put the pack down.
- Everyone else is a judge. Thumbs up if the pack is in the right place. Thumbs down if not, and say the number that tells you.
When both lines are finished, we read them from LEAST to MOST. Which drink has the most sugar in every 100 ml? Which snack has the most sugar in every 100 g? Did any pack surprise you?
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