Unwrapped: Is a School Hot Lunch Served on a Plate More Appetizing?

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective of this experiment was to discover which presentation of a school hot lunch, whether the lunch was on a plate, a tray or in the pre-packaging, would be more appetizing to Kindergarten-8th grade students. The hypothesis stated that the students would find the hot lunch served on the plate the most appetizing. Methods/Materials Pictures were taken of three separate lunches (cheese pizza, French toast, and a chicken patty and bun), with each one on a plate, a tray, and in the pre-packaging. The pictures were then put into a PowerPoint, with the three pictures of the same lunch on the same page. A form was then created that said Lunch 1, Lunch 2 and Lunch 3 down the side and next to the lunches, 1(pre-packaging) 2(tray) 3(plate). The PowerPoint was shown to approximately 200 Kindergarten-8th grade students who circled the preferred lunch presentation out of the three pictures on each slide of the PowerPoint on the form. The data was collected and put into tables and graphs. Results After the experiment was performed, it was found that for two out of three lunches that students preferred the lunch on the plate. For one lunch, they preferred the tray. Very few students favored the lunch in the pre-packaging. Conclusions/Discussion It was concluded that most students prefer a hot lunch on a plate than on a tray or in the pre-packaging. The least appetizing is to serve a hot lunch in the pre-packaging. The researcher believes that this was because the students associate the pre-packing with the lunch looking and tasting unappetizing. A trend that was noticed is that the Kindergarten-2nd graders had the most amounts of students preferring the prepackaging. The researcher believes this is because the younger students haven#t had as much exposure to the school hot lunches as the older students and don#t associate the lunches with being distasteful.

Competition history

• CSEF 2012 Behavioral & Social Sciences · Entry J0499

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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