Use this guide’s objectives, procedure notes, and answer key to lead students through choosing, reading, and comparing bar graphs, line graphs, and pie charts.
Data Literacy 1. Reading and Understanding Graphs
Summary
Students learn when to use a bar graph, a line graph, or a pie chart. Then they read, compare, and troubleshoot graphs on topics from school electricity use to city rainfall and wind speed. The lesson opens with a short story, The Tale of Talking Graphs, and ends with graphs that are missing a title or label for students to spot. It includes a teacher guide with an answer key, a slide deck to project, and a student guide, and it’s Level 1 of a 5-part series, with Levels 1 and 2 ideal for upper elementary and middle school. Parts 3-5 are coming soon!
Activities
Slide Deck
Project these slides to introduce when to use each type of graph and to work through the Student Guide graphs as a class.
Student Guide
Have students read The Tale of Talking Graphs, then choose the right graph for each data set, answer questions about real graphs, and find the missing labels.