Sixth Grade Explorers at Jessie Clark Excel with Excel In the first nine weeks of this school year the sixth grade students on the Explorers team at Jessie Clark Middle School have had three different opportunities to work with Excel spreadsheets. In their math class with Ms. Ashcraft, the students learned how to create spreadsheets to help them budget their money; in their science class with Ms. Case, the students used a spreadsheet to create graphs to help them make predictions about an experiment; and in the social studies class with Ms. Chandler, they used spreadsheets to create pie graphs to include in their PowerPoint Presentations that demonstrated what they learned from their Africa unit. This has been a very rewarding experience for these students as they see how they are using a valuable tool learned in one class in other classes, and how they can use these spreadsheets in real-life situations. The Sixth Grade Mathematics Standards includes "Introduce organizing information on a spreadsheet and making appropriate computer generated graphs." To aid teachers in helping their students accomplish this standard, Stephen Holthaus has created a number of Spreadsheet Activities that can be used to introduce spreadsheets and computer generated graphs as well as extension activities that can be used other classes or grade levels. Most of these activities can be located at: http://itech.fcps.net/trt8/SpreadsheetActivities/spreadsheetactivity3.htm If you click on this site you will find activities that help students prepare a budget for spending money, graphing activities related to science and some extension activities. For simple directions on preparing a pie graph which Ms. Chandler's students used in preparing their PowerPoint presentations, click on the site below: http://itech.fcps.net/trt8/Chandler/creatingpiegraph.htm Anyone is welcome to steal these activities and modify them if you wish. If you want additional information about using these spreadsheet activities in your classes, you may contact Stephen Holthaus by email at sholthau@fayette.k12.ky.us

Submitted by Stephen Holthaus