Do You Like Vegetables?

By Henry
Team 20
Lewis Elementary School
Introduction
I started out with a question: Do you like vegetables? I chose this question for
my survey project because adults think that all kids dislike vegetables and its very
stereotypical to think that. I want to know if that was the case. My prediction was that
half the people who answered would answer that they dislike vegetables and the other
half would say that they like them. I predicted this because I thought that there would be
a balance between kids who like vegetables and ones who dont. It turned out that most
of the people that answered said that they like vegetables.
Procedure
We started this project by thinking of ten questions. Next we choose our best
three. After that, we made 30-second pitches for each question to share in a kid-to-kidto-kid-to-kid conference. Then we chose the final question and built our surveys on
surveymonkey.com. The next week we spent time answering each others surveys. Then
the next day we continued to step four of the survey project procedure: analyze data. To
analyze our data we started by copying and pasting the survey results onto a Google Doc.
Then we went through a process of coding our data, reflecting on our data, and
connecting our main survey question to articles off of the web. After step four Mr. Mark
gave us a Google Doc that we would write our final drafts on. Finally, we posted these
articles on our zine, Neeble!
Results
Through doing my survey, I found out that most kids actually like vegetables. My
first question was, Do you like vegetables? Out of 28 responses, 46 percent said, Yes,
I LOVE them!!, 39
percent said, Theyre
ok, and 14 percent
said, Theyre not so
good. My second
question was, A lot of
kids supposedly dislike
broccoli, do you? 85
percent said Yes, I like
broccoli, and 14
percent said No, I hate
them. My third
question was If you

dont like broccoli, would you like them more if they were prepared differently? If you
like them, leave this box empty. There was a lot of negative responses like broccoli is
evil, or unhelpful responses like yaya or no. Really weird responses. My fourth
question was If all vegetables were prepared differently, would you like them more?
Surprisingly, 53 percent said that they like vegetables plain, and 46 percent said that they
would like vegetables more. My fifth question was connected to the fourth; Why?
There were a lot of responses that talked about how they just liked them plain. The other
half said that they would taste better, but it was a yes and no question and half said no
and half said yes.
I had a lot of problems with collecting my data. For instance, a lot of people said
weird things like e2ourg or just because! and it was really confusing to analyze my
data. I found the connection to literature difficult because there were few articles about
kids and vegetables. I only found two that worked but were kind of distant, and I didnt
really get it. All and all it was a difficult process to go through the whole thing.
Interpreting Results
My results were inaccurate compared to my prediction. My prediction was that
half the people who answered would answer that they dislike vegetables and the other
half would say that they like them. It turned out that most of the people that answered
said that they like vegetables. Very few said no. For the question If all vegetables were
prepared differently, would you like them more? the results were pretty even, but in the
long run the majority said that they like theyre vegetables plain.
I looked up the topic of vegetables in school lunches on npr.org and found a story
by Patti Neighmond titled Selling Kids On Vegetables When Rules Like Clean Your
Plate Fail. She notes that kids often dont follow their parents rules about eating their
veggies nor do they obey their parents by drinking soda and eating chips when the time
isnt right. Interviewed in this story was Kristy King, a registered dietitian at Texas
Children's Hospital, who observes that the better option for getting kids to eat right is
creative negotiation, such as Try it Tuesdays during which parents and children try a
new food together after both are involved in preparing the dish. This means that schools
might consider preparing their vegetables differently, having a day designated for trying
new foods, and having kids involved in the cooking.
Across the country, many students have been found to throw away the vegetables
in their school lunch. According to a Newsela article, the head of the Kansas school
districts food service, Brad Kramer, says that he wants to serve the students healthy
food, but he also knows that it does not do any good unless the they will actually eat it. A
theory I have is that this isnt happening just in Kansas but all over the United States. I
think its happening in every school to some extent. For example, at Lewis I see that
most of the kids that I sit at a table with are more focused on talking to their friends than
eating their food, but I also see a lot of kids that are eating all of their veggies.
I had very few surprises. If I had any surprises it would be that most kids would
like their veggies plain instead of with some sort of something on the side. Also, 24 out
of 28 people said that they like broccoli. THAT was a big surprise.

New Directions
I think that I could make another survey just about school lunch and vegetables to
grow off of the survey I have already made. I could also make a survey about what
peoples favorite foods are or other questions like that. There is so much that you can
learn about with survey monkey, I think that I might want to also make a survey about
what peoples favorite hobbies are.
References
Neighmond, P. (2013, March 4). Selling kids on vegetables when rules like clean your
plate fail. National Public Radio. Retrieved from
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/03/04/173275456/selling-kids-on-veggieswhen-rules-like-clean-your-plate-fail
Newsela and McClatchy Washington Bureau. (2015, March 9). Schools say too much
food is being wasted. Newsela. Retrieved from
https://newsela.com/articles/schoollunch-standards/id/7852

Book Genres
By Natalie
Team 20
Lewis Elementary School
Introduction
I am interested in book genres because I like reading books, and I'm interested in
what other people like reading. I am interested in what people will choose and what they
wont. I predict that the votes will be cut in half for the question, What is your favorite
book genre out of the two? which was non-fiction and fiction. I also think that there will
be a lot of books that I recognize in the question, If you like fiction, what is your
favorite fiction book? The purpose of my survey is so I can read more on the genre that
got the most responses.
Procedure
The first step to my survey project was brainstorming ten questions. I chose the
three that I thought were the best. Then I got in a group of four and conferenced. In 30
seconds I shared my first question, why I was interested in it and why other people would
benefit from that question. Then I went to my next question and shared about that
question, and then my third question. The three people that were listening to me chose
the question that they thought was the best for a survey, and they gave me feedback. Then
I wrote an introduction and answered four questions about my final question. I wrote
why I was interested in this topic and why other people would benefit from it. Then I
created my survey on surveymonkey.com. I used the builder menu to make questions

and side questions. I also made an introduction for my survey that said why I wanted to
do the survey and why other people would benefit from it.
Then I moved on to collecting data. All of our class took each others surveys.
Then I looked at my results at surveymonkey.com and looked at the bar graphs from the
survey. I copied and pasted my results into my Google Docs from Survey Monkey. I
analyzed my data by reading through my results and reading it again. I took small notes
about my results and read them again. I highlighted important words and phrases, and
my themes emerged. I reflected on the five questions. What did you find out by doing
your survey? How do the results compare with your original prediction? What surprises
did you have? What problems did you have with collecting data? If you were to do this
survey again what would you do differently? The last step was telling others. I wrote an
article with the introduction, the procedure, the results, the interpreting results, the new
directions, and the title. All of our surveys will be published in a book called,
NEEBLE!
Results
When I read my responses I found out that way more people liked fiction better
than non-fiction. My question was, What is your favorite genre out of the two. (Nonfiction or fiction.) 75 percent liked fiction, and 25 percent liked non-fiction. More people
like fiction better because they say it is more adventurous and imaginary. Some people
like non-fiction better because they say can learn more about things that are actually real.
People say that non-fiction can get boring after a while, but some say fiction can too.
Some like to learn about things that cant really happen. A couple of people said that
fiction is better because you can do anything. Two of the responses said that in fiction
you can make stuff up. Another person wrote that when you read fiction it almost feels
like you're the character or youre in the book.
Another question I asked was, What is so interesting about that genre? I got a lot
of responses that fiction is adventurous and interesting. I got one response that the writer
has to be creative to write fiction. Three people said that fiction is very imaginative.
There was one response that said fiction captures my mind in a different way.
Two people said that anything can happen in fiction. One person said that nonfiction has more
life to it. Others
said that they like
non-fiction
because they can
learn new
information. A
couple of people
said that nonfiction is
something you
can read about to

understand more information better.

My third question was, If you like multiple genres name a few. Five people said
that they really like historical fiction, eight people said that they liked fantasy, and three
people said they liked mystery. I also got some responses that said they liked sci-fi,
horror, myths, suspense, poetry, realistic fiction, and comics. One person said, No,
instead of taking their time to write some other genres that they enjoy. One person put
YAEH for one of their favorite book genres. I dont know if they were trying to say
YEAH, or if there is actually a genre called YAEH. One person said what their first,
second, and third favorite genres are.
My fourth question was, How old are you? 65 percent said that they were 18
and younger. 34 percent said that they were 18 and older. My fifth question was, If you
like fiction, what is your favorite fiction book? There were a lot of books I have never
heard of. Some of the books I knew were Island of the Blue Dolphin, and The Witches.
My sixth question was, If you like non-fiction, what is your favorite non-fiction book?
I only knew one of the books and that was Harry Potter, though Ive never read the
books. This is confusing because Harry Potter is fiction, not non-fiction.
Interpreting Results
When I first put my survey on the internet I thought a lot of people were going to
like fiction better than non-fiction. Then when I looked for my results about 30 percent
more liked fiction. When I thought that more people would like fiction, I didnt think that
I would get that many responses. My prediction and my final results were off by a lot.
What I noticed was different, was the non-fiction graph. Another surprise was when I
asked about what was interesting about that genre and a couple of people just wrote down
because its interesting, and I was wondering why it was interesting. Another person said
they like fiction because it felt like you were the character. One person said that fiction
has more life to it. Another person said, It captures my mind in a different way.
When I asked if you like multiple genres, a lot of people said they liked historical
fiction. I was surprised when I only knew three of the books that were posted. If I were
to do this survey again I dont think I would put the question, What was so interesting
about that genre? I dont think I should put that question on there because I got a couple
of responses that said, LOOK UP THERE, like I had already put that question in a
different section. Or at least I need to make that question clearer.
New Directions
A survey that could come off this survey could be, What is your least favorite
book genre? Instead of, What is your favorite book genre? I could ask, Why dont
you like that genre? I could also ask, If you saw an appealing book in the genre you
didnt really like, would you change your mind about not liking that genre? Another
survey that could lead off of this one could be, What is your favorite book genre? but
instead of having two options (nonfiction and fiction), they would write their favorite
book genre in a textbox themselves. I could ask most of the same questions, but there

would be a wider variety of genres because their writing the genre they like themselves.
A survey Im interested for next time could be about what their favorite subjects are in
school.