The Costs of Thanksgiving Dinner.

I absolutely love finding information that students can turn into graphs.  Information based on real life situations, not something a textbook author dreamed up to perfectly fit the section's topic.

Did you know that a full Thanksgiving dinner cost $5.68 in 1947 but in 2018, it ran $48.90.  If you adjust past prices to account for inflation, the prices have ranged between about $41.00 and $57.00.  If students graphed these, they'd have a better idea of the prices went up and down through time.

The figures can be found here and are based on a meal consisting of a 16 pound turkey with 14 ounces of stuffing, three pounds of sweet potatoes, 12 dinner rolls, a pound of frozen peas, 12 ounces of cranberries, a half pound each of carrots and celery along with everything needed to make two pumpkin pies topped with whipped cream and a gallon of milk.  Enough to feed 10 people.  This site gives a better breakdown of the cost of the turkey, and a combined cost of sweet potatoes, stuffing, and cranberries so students can break the meals down even further.  They can use the information to calculate what percent of the total cost the turkey is or the percent the sweet potatoes, stuffing, and cranberries make up.

If you are only interested in the price of turkey, The Chicago Tribune has multiple ads beginning in 1915 showing turkey sold for $0.28 per pound while as in 2015, it went for $0.48 per pound.  The newspaper also includes the price adjusted for the actual cost in 2015 dollars to give a better idea of how the cost relates.

On the other hand the Business Insider shows the breakdown for the Thanksgiving meal as it cost in 1911 so you know how the $6.81 breaks down but if you include inflation, the cost in 2013 dollars is way, way more.  It is possible to compare prices to 2019 using this article from Moneywise.

The World Economic Forum has a great article on the economics of Thanksgiving.  It looks at everything from the cost of dinner to the average cost of a turkey, to a map showing which states pay the most, the least, and in-between.  It also looks at the number of people traveling, the age grouping of people who end up shopping on Thanksgiving, and the average cost per person including travel.  It is filled with six different graphs so students get a lot of experience reading real graphs.

This site addresses how long a person has to work to afford a full Thanksgiving meal for a large gathering.  It explains where it got the data and how they used it so it is quite educational.

Lots of different ways of enjoying the same information and information one does not usually see associated with Thanksgiving.  Have fun coming up with creative ways to use it in class.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to know.  Have a great day.