Sugar Content in Drinks

Created Feb. 7, 2024 by Joy Weikert

Activating Strategy

Show video (Act One):  Video Act One     (0:39)

Have students predict how many sugar packets are inside a 20-oz bottle of soda.

Main Lesson

1. Have students brainstorm what information they will need to determine how many sugar packets are inside a 20-oz bottle of soda.

  •  Some students will probably want to use the fact that the bottle is 20 ounces.
  •  Try to get students to arrive at the fact that we need to know how much sugar is in each packet and how much sugar is in the bottle of soda.  

2. Show a 20-oz bottle of coca-cola to the class.  

3.  Show a sugar packet to the class.

4.  Help students setup a proportion.

\frac{1 packet}{4 grams of sugar}=\frac{x packets}{65 grams of sugar}


  • Review how to use cross multiplication and solve the proportion.
  • There would be 16.25 packets of sugar in a 20-oz bottle of coca-cola.

5.  Verify their answer by watching the final video (0:39):  Video Act 3

6.  Another prediction:  How many sugar packets would be in TWO 20-oz bottles?     

  • Answer: 32 packets
  • This represents a proportional relationship because 2 bottles would have twice as much sugar as 1 bottle.

7.  Arrange students into teams of 4.

8.  Give each team a different beverage (soda, energy drink, sports drink, etc.).

9.  Have teams determine the amount of sugar in their drink and then setup/solve a proportion to determine the    

     number of sugar packets in their drink.


Summarizing Strategy

Have students complete an exit ticket, answering the LEQ:

                                     How can you use patterns to make predictions?


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