SamizdatMath

Back in the 1980s (before most of you were born), the A & W hamburger restaurant chain tried to go head to head with McDonalds' new "quarter pounder" by creating and marketing a "⅓ pound hamburger." It was a spectacular flop. A research company hired to find the source of the problem found out that half of the people surveyed thought that there was less meat in a ⅓ lb. burger than a ¼ lb. burger because, well, "3 is less than 4." The burger was renamed the "Big Papi" and continued to be sold b

Here's a very uncomfortable fact: it takes 4 pounds of potatoes to make 1 pound of potato chips. That means that for every 1 pound bag of potato chips you eat, 3 pounds of potatoes have to be thrown away. What a waste of food! This is a series of activities that looks at the hidden world of food waste. It includes a look at how much food is wasted as it is "processed" into finished products like french fries and potato chips. It also includes mathematical activities where students calculate how