GRASPING GRASPING GRAPHINGGRAPHING

Graphs are visual representations of data you collect in an experiment.

There are many types of graphs including: bar, line, scatter plot, histogram, circle (pie), stem and leaf

The most commonly used graphs in science are bar graphs, line graphs, and scatter plots.

BAR AND LINE GRAPHS/ SCATTER PLOTS

A bar graph is used for comparing data quickly and easily and shows distribution of data between groups.

A line graph is best used for looking at changes over time and predicting outcomes.

Scatter plots are used to compare two sets of data.

SETTING UP YOUR GRAPH

Set up your graphs with an x-axis and a y-axis. The x-axis is horizontal, and the y-axis is vertical.

The x-axis represents the independent variable.

The y-axis represents the dependent variable.

Individual axis labels

Title

X axis has a label

Y axis

Principal Skinner wants to see if the amount of sunlight affects the average height of his tulips. He exposes his flowers to various amounts of sunlight, and uses intervals of 0,10, 20, 30, etc. hours of sunlight.

• Principal Skinner wants to know how high the tulip would be when exposed to 46 hours of sunlight. He can interpolate the answer by finding 46 hours on the x-axis.

• If Principal Skinner wanted to know how tall the plants would be after 100 hours of sunlight, he could extrapolate by following the general pattern of the graph.

SCATTERPLOT Line of Best Fit

Strong correlation

Weak correlation

Zero Correlation

Positive Correlation

Negative Correlation

PIE GRAPHS