Each day they tweet an image related to a number-filled news story and they gather these together at the end of the week. Here are three short Quibans (with slightly longer versions that involve starting with the same image but then with extra information). The short ones could be starter activities.
Quibans 20.1: What questions can you ask/answer?
Shorter version:
Possible questions:
- How much sugar should an adult have per year?
- How many large chai lattes could an adult drink per year?
- Three days would clearly be 90g of sugar, so how long (in days/hours/etc) should this drink be made to last?
Longer version:
'Shocking' sugar levels in High Street hot drinks, warns charity
How much did the person quoted in the article exceed his annual sugar intake by?
"I used to drink a large white cafe mocha with caramel and vanilla syrup, cream on top, caramel and chocolate drizzle at Starbucks - approximately three times a day, seven days a week.
"I did this for about a year. At the time, I knew this drink had lots of sugar and fat, but I wasn't aware of just how much.
"At one point the assistant manager refused to serve me because they were concerned of the health impact. The rest of the staff continued to serve me.
"I drastically cut back on these sugary drinks after I was diagnosed with a very high cholesterol level and liver problems three years ago.
"I still have high cholesterol now and was recently diagnosed with a fatty liver - which means it is not working properly - not from alcohol but from sugar."Question:
How much did the person quoted in the article exceed his annual sugar intake by?
Quibans 20.2: What questions can you ask/answer?
Shorter version:
Possible questions:
- What is the exchange rate between RS and $ ?
- What is the cost of making them if they are sold at a 90% loss?
Longer version:
Is India’s $3.60 smartphone too good to be true?
On Wednesday evening a virtually unknown Indian company launched the "world's cheapest smartphone", named Freedom 251, for 251 rupees ($3.60; £2.50), in Delhi.
According to media reports, the Indian Cellular Association has written to telecoms minister Ravi Shankar Prasad saying it was not possible to sell a 3G phone below 2,700 rupees.
Smartphones, on the other hand, saw a huge spread in prices. But the top selling category, accounting for over 22% of smartphones sold in India in 2015, were for 4,000 to 6,000 rupees - rather than in the cheapest price range for smartphones, which starts below 3,000 rupees. So cheapest isn't the bestseller for smartphones.
Possible questions:
- How much (in £) should the cheapest 3G phone cost?
- How many smartphones cost between 4,000 and 6,000 Rupees?
- What is the approximate total cost of those phones (in £)?
Quibans 20.3: What questions can you ask/answer?
Shorter version:
Possible questions:
- Find out how much a pod costs (Google, or online shopping site). Then work out how many are sold each year.
- How much packaging is produced?
Longer version:
Is there a serious problem with coffee capsules?Questions:
Coffee pods make up one third of the €18bn (£13.9bn) Western European coffee market.
In the last year more than £112m-worth of coffee pods were sold in the UK, up by a third from 2014. Sales are expected to treble by 2020, at which point coffee capsule sales could overtake those of tea bags.
In Halifax, 200,000 or more capsules have been kept away from landfill by convincing residents to take their coffee in a different manner.
Nespresso runs its own recycling programme, where it picks up used capsules for reuse. A company spokesperson said that it has in place the capacity to recycle over 80% of used capsules
Two billion cups of coffee are drunk around the world every day and 25 million families rely on growing coffee for a living. Over the past 15 years, consumption of the drink has risen by 43% - but researchers are warning that the world's most popular coffee, Arabica, is under threat.
- What fraction of the coffee pods sold in Western Europe were bought in the UK?
- What was the cost of the UK pods in 2014?
- 200,000 is what fraction of the UK pods sold in 2015?
- How many pods can Nespresso? [NB: they "have the capacity" to recycle this many - it doesn't mean that people do recycle them!]
- How many cups of coffee does each producer create (on average) per day?
- Global consumption of coffee has grown over the past 15 years. But so has the global population. Google the population 15 years ago and now and find out whether coffee consumption per person has actually gone up or down, and by how much.
Sources:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-35616091
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35593007
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-35601544
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35605927
