Setting Up Your Data for Success

This highly customizable activity guides students through organizing and documenting spreadsheet data during a class investigation. 

The activity focuses on decisions during data organization and collection that facilitate future graphing and analysis. It is designed to be used at the start of an investigation (e.g., experiment or lab) you may already be doing with your class. You can modify the “Customizable Student Handout” to use with a class investigation of your choosing. The “Educator Materials” provides guidance on customizing the student template and implementing the activity in class.

You can also download example materials customized for the ruler drop investigation. The “Ruler Drop Student Handout” document provides a filled-in example of the “Customizable Student Handout,” which can be further customized or used as is. The “Ruler Drop Educator Materials” document provides additional guidance for implementing the ruler drop investigation in class.

The “Resource Google Folder” link directs to a Google Drive folder of resource documents in the Google Docs format. Not all downloadable documents for the resource may be available in this format. The Google Drive folder is set as “View Only”; to save a copy of a document in this folder to your Google Drive, open that document, then select File → “Make a copy.” These documents can be copied, modified, and distributed online following the Terms of Use listed in the “Details” section below, including crediting BioInteractive.