Educational Application of Excel CEP 810

Created by: Jean-Claude Aura Date: September 27, 2008 Page 1

Students get the company names and production capacities from the website below: http://uk.reuters.com/article/rbssIndustryMaterialsUtilitiesNews/idUKB14835520080820?sp=true To get the company addresses and number of employees, they click on 'profile'. As for Asia Pulp and Paper, no information was provided on the number of employees. This is an eventuality students should understand.

Educational Application of Excel CEP 810

Created by: Jean-Claude Aura Date: September 27, 2008 Page 2

I. Objectives

a. Students will learn how to create a table with numerical data and sort them by preference. b. Students will learn how to add data in columns and add comments. c. Students will be able to manipulate the appearance of the table. d. Students will learn how to interpret numbers by creating a pie chart and a bar chart.

II. Procedure

This activity is best done after having implemented the Internet-based lesson on the process of papermaking. Please click on the link on page 1 for more details. After the students have learnt how paper is produced, they surf the web for the 10 biggest paper producers in the world. They can find this information at the web link provided on page 1. The whole idea is for students to create a meaningful table with data of some relevance. The next step is to see how they can manipulate the data the way they like. That is, they can decide to sort the data based on the number of employees in each company or on its production capacity. Students will eventually realize that without Excel, this task will be cumbersome and time consuming. Once they have learnt how to sort the data, they learn how to add the total capacity production and number of employees in each company. Then, they learn to create a pie chart and a bar chart to see how much easier it is to interpret results in these forms.

III. Conclusion

The main purpose of this Excel sheet is to introduce students to a better way of manipulating and representing data. When this activity is completed, students are encouraged to explore additional features of Excel to get a representation of the data that best meets their needs. They can, for example, choose to add percentages next to the data for an easier reading of the results.