At state and local levels, home visiting programs may use one of several mechanisms to collect and store data from families and clients who participate in home visiting services. States that are interested in integrating home visiting data with other early childhood data must often navigate the different ways in which home visiting data are stored…

One way to tackle climate misconceptions is to have students work with data to show how the climate is changing in their local community. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has weather stations nationwide that collect data on air temperature and precipitation that are freely available online. This article describes a lesson…

Historically, some baby names have been more popular during a specific time span, whereas other names are considered timeless. The Internet article, "How to Tell Someone's Age When All You Know Is Her Name" (Silver and McCann 2014), describes the phenomenon of the rise and fall of name popularity, which served as a catalyst for the…

This case involves actual data from a student managed café that serves as a learning laboratory for a college of business. The student team that manages the café has never had access to precise data from a point of sale system until this semester. However, once they downloaded the raw data from the cash register they were unable to make sense of…

This inquiry-based activity designed for the fifth through 12th grade allows students to engage in an outdoor, place-based experience, working collaboratively both in groups and as a class to accomplish the class goal of creating a local tree map linked to student-collected data about each tree. During Local Tree Mapping, students explore the…

Titration experiments are ideal for generating large data sets for use in quantitative-analysis activities that are meaningful and transparent to general chemistry students. We report the successful implementation of a sophisticated quantitative exercise in which the students identify a series of unknown acids by determining their molar masses…

Electronic spreadsheets and online weather databases are excellent tools for making real-world comparisons of local, national, and global climate trends. The activities described in this article incorporate these tools to help familiarize students with electronic spreadsheets and how to use authentic data sets available from the internet to answer…

Managing data collected from online surveys may be a straightforward process involving no more than downloading a spreadsheet from a Web survey host and presenting descriptive statistics associated with each questionnaire item. On the other hand, if the evaluation objectives require more complex analysis and presentation of the data, it will be…

It is common to find students believing that they have a high skill level in computer use yet this does not normally include proficiency in the use of computer packages for data presentation. This exercise develops team work in data collection, requires the production of a simple spreadsheet, and the exporting of the data from that into one or…

One of the most beneficial uses for technology in the science classroom is data manipulation. During labs and other learning experiences, students can quickly put the data they collect into spreadsheets or databases. Then they can make comparisons, create graphs, draw conclusions, sort the data in new ways, and, ultimately, give their data…

Describes how sixth-grade students in a computer and math project at the Ralph Bunche Computer Minischool in New York City collected and entered penny tossing data on spreadsheets for a unit on probability, and how they were encouraged to collect more data by setting up a World Wide Web-based form. Includes a copy of the Web form. (PEN)

With schools being asked to accomplish more and more, it is increasingly important to, whenever possible, address multiple goals in teaching. Educating the whole child dictates that we find ways to ensure our graduates are well-rounded, independent thinkers capable of becoming well-adjusted, contributing adults. Thus community service has become a…

Describes projects in a fifth grade classroom that used data collection and graph making activities as part of a collaborative project between the teacher and the library media specialist. Discusses the use of Excel spreadsheets, comparing the effectiveness of different types of graphs, and project planning. (LRW)

Described is a means of logging data from remote sensors in data files and then transferring the data to a spreadsheet for processing. The presentation of the data in tabular or graphical form is discussed. An example using temperature data from a model house is provided. (Author/CW)

Focuses on effective data gathering in school libraries. Discusses the connection between program goals and statistical information; budget data; using spreadsheets to track and compare costs; circulation data and trends; copyright assessment of materials; material-quality evaluation; lab usage data; computer information; data on services and…