Activity Description Enter data to create a bar graph, then change many settings for the graph's appearance.

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Bar Graph

Place in mathematics curriculum:

• Demonstrate the idea of a bar graph
• Create bar graphs
• Give students practice in reading bar graphs
• Display the purpose of visual representations of data

This activity allows the user to graph data on a bar graph. Students can use predefined data sets or enter their own data. Users can also change graph properties such as the scale and the color of the bars. This activity would work well in small groups of 3-4 for about 25-30 minutes if you use the exploration questions and 15-20 minutes otherwise.

Preparations for this activity:

• Encourage students to enter in their own data or be ready to give them examples of data to enter
• Explain how the scale can influence how the graph looks
• Discuss how graphs can be misleading
• Discuss the difference between categorical and quantitative data