Mr. Rich's Excel Activities - Movie List Functions - 20,000 Trees Functions and Charts

EXCEL - Data, Functions and Charts

For this unit, students will use program called
Microsoft Excel

  • New Brunswick students can login to www.office.com and then download this software for free.
    ​(Windows, Mac and Android versions available)
  • To download for free, login with your student account (@nbss.nbed.nb.ca) and password. 
    - Then click on your initials (top right corner) and choose "View account"
    - Then click either "Office Apps" or "Manage Office Apps" or something similar.  Follow the instructions from there.

Spreadsheets and Data - Microsoft EXCEL

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Spreadsheets are a simplified way to create, manage, sort and visualize data.

Microsoft Excel is the most common spreadsheet app used in business today.

Students will learn how to enter data about their favourite movies.  Students will use functions to determine averages, minimums, maximums and other similar calculations.

Students will also be given data, such as the 20,000 trees of our city.  Students will be asked to sort the data, determine the 10 most numerous trees, and use this data to make at least 3 different charts.

Microsoft Excel (microsoft.com)

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Learn how to use Excel on the official Microsoft site. 

​There are lots of great videos on this site, but you probably want to have a purpose first and then go looking here for reference or to find solutions.

Similar Programs to Excel

While Microsoft Excel is the most used spreadsheet program in businesses world-wide, it is not the only one.

The first spreadsheet apps was VisiCalc for early Apple computers, followed quickly by Lotus 1-2-3 for other computers.

Many others copied this with Microsoft Excel being the first using a GUI (graphical user interface) and so quickly taking over the market.

CURRENT ALTERNATIVES for EXCEL
On Mac computers, Apple now has Numbers.
On Linux computers, Gnumeric is popular.
​A popular free program is LibreOffice and/or OpenOffice.org which also has Calc.
On the web, Google now has Sheets (although it doesn't do as much as the other programs).

For a large list of spreadsheet apps, check out this Wikipedia page.

Activities

Introduction (aka Hook)
 - Follow intro activity here (You can login as GUEST)

Activity #1 - Create a Movie List of 20 movies
 - Start with this blank template (Download now)
 - To see a sample movie list, click here.
 - Follow the instructions here (You can login as GUEST)

Activity #2 - Calculate, Sort and Chart the 20,000 Trees in Fredericton
 - Start with this data file
 - Follow the instructions here (You can login as GUEST)