These Are a Few of my Favorite Tools (Excel)

by Sandra Sicard

For the second installment in my series about tools, I've decided to showcase Microsoft Excel. Excel is a spreadsheet program that, at first glance, is unexciting. It is used widely in the business world to organize and analyze data. I'm trying to encourage teachers to use it not only administratively but also instructionally. Here are some examples of how we've used it this year at Pierce; maybe one will inspire you to try it out.

(I have first-hand knowledge about the following lessons because students were in the lab for some of their learning. There are other examples of students using Excel in various parts of the curriculum; I just don’t know about all of them.)

Students in 4S are learning about minerals in science; as part of the unit, they conduct tests on a variety of samples (about 12) and compare their results to identify a mystery rock. We used Excel to create a chart of their test results; our goal was to organize their data in an easy-to-read way. This is a great first step in learning to navigate the cells, columns, and rows in Excel.

Last fall, 5k researched wolves. As part of their unit, they conducted opinion polls about wolf characteristics and lifestyles. Students then input their data into Excel and created graphs to illustrate the survey results. Printing the graphs in color gave them a polished and professional appearance. Later in the year, students returned to Excel and used it in a science lesson to analyze respiration rates of peers and adults.

Eighth grade students have used Excel in a variety of math and science units this year. Their first lesson reviewed the basics of Excel by using a spreadsheet to calculate grades and some class statistics. Students then used Excel to determine if a correlation existed between stride length and height and then shoe size and height. They graphed the data and found the line of best fit as well as the r squared (the square of the correlation coefficient).

From those lessons, it's easy to see how Excel is a flexible tool that allows you to do a little or a lot with data.

Have some data of your own to collect, organize, and/or analyze? Let’s talk about what tool makes the most sense to do what you need. I'll be sharing some lessons from The Graph Club in my next blog - a very simple data tool for primary students.