graphing

Objective:

The object of this activity is to learn how to gather information and place it in a spreadsheet to create a graph.

You are going to pretend that you have surveyed the entire class using the question, “What is your favorite color?” Here is the information that you gathered:

Take the information from above and tally how many liked each color in the table below.

Now go to the computer to create your spreadsheet and graph.

1. Open Microsoft Word.
2. Under File select Page Setup. On the Paper Size Tab click in the dot in from of the word Portrait to change the orientation of the page. Click OK.
3. Click on the Excel Table Shortcut Button in the toolbar to create a 15 x 12 table (or as large as your screen will allow) by clicking and dragging in the box that appears.
4. Now a spreadsheet will appear. Click in Cell A1. Type the word Blue. Hit the right arrow key or Tab key on the keyboard.
5. In Cell B1 type the word Green. Hit the right arrow key or Tab key.
6. Continue doing this until all of the colors have been typed in the first row
7. Under each color name type in the number of people who picked it as their favorite color.

To create a graph

8. Highlight the information that you have entered into the Excel table. To highlight, click your mouse in Cell A1 and drag over to Cell B7. Let go of the mouse. Make sure all of the cells with information in them are highlighted. (Cell A1 will still be white with a bold line around it while all of the other cells will be black.)
9. Click on the Graph Wizard shortcut button in the toolbar.
10. Select the type of graph that you want by clicking on the picture. To graph the information about favorite colors, it would be best to choose a bar, column, or pie graph but go ahead and look at the other charts while you are here.
11. Once you have selected the type of graph you want, click the Next button.
12. You will now see a window for Step 2. We are not going to do anything with this today. Click the Next button.
13. In the Chart Options Window you will label the chart in three places. For the Chart Title: type Favorite Colors in Our Class.
14. In the Category (X) axis: box type the word Colors.
15. In the Value (Y) axis: box type the words Number of students.
16. Click Next.

17. In the last step make sure the dot is in front of the words As object in: Click Finish.
18. Your graph will appear in your spreadsheet. If you cannot see all of your graph, click and drag on the the grab box in the lower right hand corner of the spreadsheet and make it bigger.
19. If you click in an area outside of your spreadsheet you will see how things will look when you print. The spreadseet column and row headings disappear. If you need to work on the spreasheet again, just double click in the middle of the spreadsheet.
20. Print your graph.