Page 2 - Computers and Technology for Social Studies
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03-SS-Spreadsheet  5/31/07  8:34 AM  Page 62




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               Activity  1




                An African Climate







               World History Practice Activity







                             Technology Overview            Would you rather pore over row after row of num-
                             bers, or see information organized into a colorful graph? Most people would prefer a
                             visual representation of data when they just need basic information. Technology
                             makes it easy to communicate complex data in a way that is easy to understand. For
                             example, spreadsheet programs, which can calculate huge amounts of data, have
                             features that allow you to display numerical data as graphs, charts, and tables. In this
                             activity, you will use a spreadsheet program to create a graph.
                             Content Overview           In much of North America, people are accustomed to
                             a regular change of seasons, with summer occurring in June, July, and August, fol-
                             lowed by autumn, winter, and spring. But in the Southern Hemisphere, the seasons
                             are reversed. In this activity, you will study the climate of a specific region in the
                             Southern Hemisphere, the area around Kimberley, South Africa. You will create a
                             chart and a graph showing the average monthly rainfall amounts there.


               TERMS

               Chart A graphic that allows you to compare and con-  Legend A key that identifies each of the data series
                  trast data in a visual format.                      in a chart.
               Data series For most charts, a data series is the    Merge To combine selected cells into a single cell.
                  information in a worksheet column. If you select  Number format A format that controls how numeri-
                  multiple columns of data for a chart, you’ll create  cal data is displayed, including the use of commas,
                  multiple data series. Each data series is then repre-  dollar signs (or other symbols), and the number of
                  sented by its own color bar, line, or column.       decimal places.
               Embedded chart A chart placed as an object within    Plot To position data points on a graph.
                  a worksheet.
                                                                    Portrait orientation The default position for dis-
               Fill handle Dragging this handle, located in the       playing and printing data horizontally across the
                  lower-right corner of the active cell, will copy cell  shorter side of a page.
                  contents, formatting, or a formula to adjacent cells.
                                                                    Range Two or more cells in a worksheet. The cells
               Font A complete set of characters in a specific face,  may be adjacent or nonadjacent.
                  style, and size.
                                                                    Series A list of sequential numbers, dates, times,
               Font size The height of an uppercase letter in a       or text.
                  font set.
                                                                    X-axis The horizontal scale of a chart on which cate-
               Font style The slant and weight of characters in a     gories are plotted.
                  font set.
                                                                    Y-axis The vertical scale of a chart on which the
               Landscape orientation Rotating worksheet data          value of each category is plotted.
                  so it displays and prints horizontally across the
                  longer side of a page.




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