Brief Description

During this lesson, students will create a spreadsheet and a graph using the historic census numbers for a state of their choosing.  This ties in with our Social Studies unit in which students research a particular state and write a report about it.  Students will use their chosen state for this project.

Standards and Frameworks

Technology Standards

3T-E2 Use a variety of technology tools for data collection and analysis

2M-E1 Construct, read, analyze, and interpret table, charts, graphs, and data plots

Academic

• Students will create a spreadsheet using data collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.
• Students will create a graph from the spreadsheet.
• Students will evaluate which kind of graph is appropriate for the information.

• Students will create a spreadsheet using data collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.
• Students will create a graph from the spreadsheet.
• Students will evaluate which kind of graph is appropriate for the information.

• Students should have had a basic introduction to a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel.
• Students need to be able to navigate to a given page on the Internet, either by clicking on links or entering a URL.
• Students should be able to copy information from a webpage and paste it into a document.

Computer with a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel
Computer with access to the Internet.
A computer lab is optional.

Accommodations for Special Needs

Special education students and English Language Learners will be accomodated in what ever way is appropriate.  This may include peer or teacher reading and help with entering data.  If appropriate, special needs  students may work with another student.

Procedures

Before beginning this project, review with the students how to take information and put it in a table.  Discuss how a spreadsheet on a computer is essentially like a table that they are familiar with from math.  Introduce basic spreadsheet vocabulary, including cells, rows, and columns.

• Have the students begin by opening Microsoft Excel and go through how to create a spreadsheet to display the populations of their states from 1900 to 2000. It is important to note that in order to have the application treat these dates as labels, not numbers, you will need to highlight the dates, go to the Format menu, go to "Cells".  From there, click on the "Number" tab and select "Text" from the list. This way the chart wizard won't try to plot the years which are actually labels, not data.
• The next step is to get the data from the U.S. Census Bureau.  This data can be accessed at www.census.gov.  From the main page, look for QuickFacts on the right side.  Select a state and hit "Go!".  When you reach the QuickFacts for a particular state, click "Browse more data sets for this state".  You will see a link for historic data.  This is where you will find the data for 1900-1990.  The data for 2000 can be found at the first QuickFacts page for each state.
• Now the students are ready to copy the data from the website into the spreadsheet.  Students will need to be able to switch between two open programs to do this.  Students will need to highlight each number, copy it, and paste it into the spreadsheet.  A demonstration of how to do this will probably be needed.
• Once students have entered all the information into the spreadsheet, they will need to create the graph.  Go over how to do this with the students using the chart wizard, then let them create several graphs of different types and decide which displays the information the best.  Students will print out their spreadsheets and their choice of graph.

• Students will be assessed on the completeness and accuracy of their spreadsheets.  A quality spreadsheet will have a title, heading for the columns, and the correct data entered.
• Students will also be assessed on their graphs.  A quality graph will have a title, axis titles, and a legend.  It will also display the data appropriately.  Appropriate graphs for this data would be a line graph or a bar graph.