Sasha, a student in Ms. Kahn’s class, is vegetarian. “I can integrate all the nutrients I need into my diet without eating meat,” she says, “so why should any animals be harmed?”

Jamal is not vegetarian, but has decided to eat less meat. Jamal claims, “Raising livestock for food is not an efficient use of our resources. Over 50% of the corn and soybeans grown in the world are fed to animals instead of hungry people! The United States does not just export products to other countries; we export our ideas too. We should set a good example by trying to eat less meat.”

Anthony disagrees with the other students. “The way we eat is symbolic of being American!” he says. “Eating meat has always been an important tradition in this country.”

Sasha says, “I don’t think that’s right. I heard that Americans used to eat much less meat than they do today. That means there are so many more animals killed for food than there used to be.”

“No way!” said Anthony. “I’ll look it up.”

Anthony checked data from the U.S. Census and the Humane Society to investigate eating patterns in the U.S. over time.

Question: Has the number of animals killed for food per person in the United States gone up over time?

Hypothesis: The number of animals killed for food per person in the United States stayed about the same from 1950 to 2010.

Procedure:

1. Record the total number of farm animals killed for food in the United States in 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010.

2. Record the total population of the United States for each year listed.

3. For each year listed, calculate how many farm animals were killed for food per person.

Here are the data that Anthony found:

Discussion Question:

What would you predict the data to be this year? Do you have ideas about how you could find that data?