Healthy Snack Shop

We had a few different ideas sent in for this activity. Calum said:

You would first need to find out how many people are in the class so that you can buy enough inventory for them. This could be done either in a simple head count or through contacting the school to find this out. After that, you would need to find out what healthy snacks people would like to eat and then find the most common ones to save money. Next you would need to seek permission to set up shop. Finally, you would buy your inventory.

Thank you for sending us your ideas, Calum. How would you find out which healthy snacks people like to eat?

Lila from Westridge in the USA said:

How will you collect data to help answer your question? I can make a bar graph to see what healthy foods my class likes the most. Then the top foods will be the ones in my snack shop.

Well done, Lila - a bar graph will make it easy to see which snacks are the most popular.

Giselle, Lyra and Taylor, also from Westridge, said:

I chose the question, how much does each healthy snack cost? To collect the data, you first need to figure out the price of all the snacks you are selling, and then figure out if you would make the price less if the person buys more than one.

This is a good idea - you might want to lower the price if a customer buys more than one snack. How would you decide what price to sell the snacks for?

Milly said:

I would first see what healthy snacks are most liked. I would then look at the price for each healthy snack. After that, I would ask myself:

How many people asked for this, and is it worth getting?

What is my budget a week, day, month and year?

Which of these snacks are the most healthy ones?

How much space do I have?

I would then start working out the easiest one: How much space do I have? Then, I would see what the size of my stall is, how much room there is for snacks and if you can see all of the compartments. Then I would see the snacks on my data board of what snacks are most liked. I would choose the most healthy snacks and mark them. Now, I would look at how many people asked for what, how much this cost, and if it's worth getting. I would go to the shops and look at how much each item cost. If it was cheap for a lot or a few, I would get them. If it was expensive for a few or a lot, then it depended on what my budget was and how many people asked for it. The data that I had recorded earlier would be a hand-drawn bar graph with up to 30 items that people liked.

These are some good ideas, Milly. I wonder how you would decide if a snack was cheap or expensive?

Zhelong from The British School in The Netherlands said:

Question: How to list the opinions and represent them, how many healthy snacks should the shop get for each snack

Solution: I would do an online survey to 1000 people-500 people and let them vote 3-5 votes for different snacks, then let the computer turn that survey into a pie chart/graph, the result you should let it turn to percentages. Use that number then order the total snack and fruit in different fruit and snack columns, with that, you should hopefully (probably) get your shop nicely opened.

Thank you, Zhelong! I think Zhelong is saying that if 40% of people voted for something as their favourite snack, then 40% of your snacks should be that type of snack. Why might this be a good idea?

Nishad from the International School of Brussels in Belgium sent in their solution for how to decide what price to charge for bananas. They have assumed that as the price goes up, fewer people will buy the bananas. Why might this be true?

Have a look at Nishad's table. Can you have a think about why the most profit can be made if you choose a price somewhere in the middle, rather than setting a really cheap or really expensive price for the bananas?

Thank you to everybody who sent in their solutions for this activity!