An interactive tutorial Created by Mr. Klugman 9 / 12 / 99 Do the Tutorial…Teach me!Go right to the graphing

In order to understand science properly, scientists have to know how create and read graphs. Reading a graph is also called interpreting a graph. See if you can tell what the graph below is about! This line is called the y axis. Click to continue This line is called the x axis Click to continue Average Points Scored per Game Year Each axis of a graph has a label Click to continue And a series of values Click to continue If we are given a point to plot on on the graph, it must have an X value (in this case - a year) and a Y value (points per game). Let’s see what the plot for 1985 would look like if the average points were 99. Click to continue We first locate 1985… click to continue We then locate 99 (on the y axis) click to continue Where these two lines cross, is where we put our point! Click to continue

Year Average Points Scored per Game Let’s plot more data… 1990’s average was 105 Find the point and then click to see it. 1995’s average was 95. Find the point and then click to see it. Good! Now find the year 2000’s average which was only 80! Find the point and then click. Outstanding! Click to continue

The Good Now you can graph The Bad Not all graphs are this easy!

The values placed on the x and y axis of a graph depend on the data we are graphing. In the example we saw earlier we had “average points per game” and “year.” Our scales were easily understood because their intervals units, or intervals ran in increments of one year per unit, or 5 points per game. One line = one year like this. Or one line = 5 points like this Can you answer these questions; 1) why did we start our graph with the year 1980? and 2) why did we choose to make each interval on the y axis worth 5 points (instead of one)? Click to continue

The answer is a lot easier than you might think… …we select our units, or intervals, in a way that makes it easiest for us and in a way that makes our graph easy to understand! Can you imagine a graph that started at year 1 and went all the way up to the year 2000! If we are graphing anything from the 20th century, this would be a waist…we’d have to write out 1 thousand and nine hundred years before we got to any we actually needed! What a waste of time!… this was all we needed! Click to continue