How Healthy Do People Eat? Stats, food and cheese!

In my French II class, we have been looking at different foods in various Francophone countries and preparing to create cooking show videos; one concept we learned at the beginning of the unit was whether the food we eat is healthy or not.  (It should be noted that this survey is an introduction to the passé composé.  We do not learn anything about the tense other than they are in the past.  I also introduce devrait, so they can give advice on what is healthy.)

To this end, I thought I would share this simple activity for two reasons: 1) it's very easy to implement; and 2) many of us do not know how cool it is that a pie chart is called a camembert.  This second reason brings in a cross-disciplinary element, giving you a chance to review numbers and to use them to talk about statistics. 

The first thing I do is to project the INSEE website so that the students have a chance to look at it and guess what INSEE is. In case you do not know, click here.   I write the question QU'EST-CE QU'ON FAIT SUR CE SITE? on the board.  Once they have looked at the site's homepage on the screen, I may ask them to go to the site on their phones or computers to explore it for a couple of minutes.

Then, they turn to a partner and try to say what you do on this site; after they've reported out, if they don't know what it is, I tell them.  I then show them camembert cheese and a pie chart and tell them that it's the same word, pointing out the cultural significance of cheese in France.

Once this is done, we review the numbers from 1-100 and talk about how to say percentages.  I may use info graphics on the family or other topics we have covered to have them practice using these numbers with percents.

Then, I give them the survey and let them go.  Sometimes we do this in class, but often I let them take it home and ask 5 friends or family members.

Once they are finished with the survey, they must make a simple pie chart saying what percentage of the people they interviewed ate healthy vs. not.  Some of them use computer generated charts and others draw them.  They bring the pie charts to class and present informally.  We then discuss whether we think this data (ces données) is representative or not of the US in general and why or why not.

Bon sondage!

Here is the survey:

Le régime de mon / ma partenaire :

Demande à 5 personnes ce qu’elles ont mangé et ce qu’elles ont bu cette semaine.  Après, marque S pour sain et M pour malsain à côté.

Exemple :

Marc

Poulet frit M

Poulet au four S

Du coca M

De l’eau S

NOM	Ce qu’il/elle a mangé	Ce qu’il/elle devrait manger	Ce qu’il/ elle a bu	Ce qu’il / elle devrait boire
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Faites un camembert (pie chart) indiquant quel pourcentage des gens interviewés mangent sain et malsain.