Episode #3 Transcript

Welcome to Kalkulation Korner – Where mathematicians meet.

Greetings fellow mathematicians today is October 3, 2009. I am Mr. Burns and this is episode #3 of Kalkulation Korner. Before we get into this episode I want to tell you about the blog that goes along with this podcast. The title of the blog is also Kalkulation Korner. The web address is kalkulationkorner.blogspot.com or just Google Kalkulation Korner and you will find it. Go visit it to see transcripts, slides or to leave a comment about the podcast.

In this episode we will explain graphs. This topic was chosen by my third hour intervention class and they were essential to the script writing process. We will explore the types, when to use particular graphs, and the parts. Before we go into detail about the graphs we need to go over one vocabulary word and that is graph. By definition a graph is a visual representation of data. First we will discuss all the different types of graphs: line graphs, double line graphs, bar graph, double bar graph, histogram and circle graph. The first visual representation of data, or graph, we will look at is the line graph.

As the name suggests a line graph uses a line to represent the data. Very similar to a line graph is a double line graph. Mathematicians use line graphs to show change over time, also called a trend, and a double line graph is used to compare trends. Bar graphs are used to compare data sets. A bar graph can be used to compare the favorite flavors of ice cream in your class. You would be able to further break down this data into boys and girls to create a double bar graph. One bar would be used to show the girls data and one for the boys. Histograms are next on our list and very similar to a bar graph. In fact a histogram is a type of bar graph. A histogram shows continuous data and the bars must be touching. Histograms can be used to show test scores, number of family members or any other kind of data that can be shown in ranges. The last graph we will discuss is the circle graph. We use a circle graph when we are showing data as a part of a whole.

Now that we know what graphs there are and when they are used we need to discuss the parts of a graph. Graphs we use contain a lot of data and we need away to interpret this data. The first part of a graph is the title. The title tells us what information, or data, the graph contains. Line graphs, bar graphs and histograms, along with the title, also have labels along the axes. These labels help us further develop an understanding of the data being shown. Circle graphs do not have axes to label but they do have labels, usually inside of the circle. A third place you can check for information is the key. The key is helpful in figuring out colors or what lines represent which data.



In this episode we focused on types of graphs: line and double line graphs – which are used to show a change in data over time, bar and double bar graphs – which show or compare two or more data sets, histograms – a special kind of bar graph used to show continuous data, and lastly a circle graph – which is used to show data as part of a whole. We can find important information about a graph form its parts, which could include – the title, the labels of the axes and the key.

That covers all the information we set out to cover in this episode. Make sure to visit the blog at Kalkulationkorner.blogspot.com – I am Mr. Burns and I hope you enjoyed your time here at Kalkulation Korner – where mathematicians meet and I hope you come back soon to explore more mathematical concepts.