Garden Smarts

Hunger and Alertness Tracking (conducted by 6th Graders at East Palo Alto Charter School)

For two months, students tracked what they ate and at different intervals throughout the day rated their hunger and alertness on a scale of 1 to 5.

Scale

Hunger

Alert

5

Starving!

I’m so alert, I could be Leo in the Matrix!

4

Pretty hungry.

I’m pretty alert – I’d maybe miss 1 or 2 questions out of 10.

3

Somewhat hungry…I could eat.

I’m somewhat alert.

2

A tiny bit hungry…I could eat a bite.

I’m a little bit alert, but mostly tired or distracted.

1

Not hungry at all. Full.

I’m out of it.

We wanted to find out if there was any relationship between hunger and alertness.

Hypotheses

• Paloma: When we are hungry, we are going to be alert.
• Michelle: My alertness will be higher than my hunger.
• Stephanie: My hunger will increase more when I am alert.
• Arisdelci: My hunger will increase more than my alertness.
• Javier: You need hunger and alertness.

Conclusions

• Paloma: When you are hungry, you are not alert.
• Michelle: When I’m lazy, I’m hungry. My level of alertness and my laziness can make me hungry.
• Stephanie: My conclusion is that in my data, I noticed that when I was less alert, my hunger increased
• Arisdelci: When I’m lazy, I am hungry.
• Javier: When you are hungry, you are alert.
• Cristian: My hunger always gets me sleepy. My alertness depends on how hungry I am.

Recommendations

• Paloma: You should eat all of your meals.
• Michelle: Eat breakfast and lunch so your alertness won’t be low and you won’t be lazy.
• Stephanie: I would recommend other students eat a healthy breakfast, lunch, and dinner to be alert 24/7.
• Arisdelci: You should sleep and eat.
• Javier: Eat and sleep!
• Cristian: First, eat good food and you will start changing in many ways.