Getting a Grasp on Graphs

There are so many different graphs! I forgot just how many there were. I would consider myself pretty good at assembling graphs, but something I learned from this class was when to use a certain graph over the other. I'm going to talk about just four graphs that I struggled with when we first started working with graphs. I hope that this information could then help someone else who may have been struggling with these types of graphs as well.

-Pictograph: I know what you're thinking. Aren't Pictographs just graphs represented with pictures? Well, I knew this, but what puzzled me was why and when anyone would ever use this type of graph. It seems to be the least accurate. I learned that Pictographs are pictorial graphs that display data. Pictographs are better used when the images are displaying whole or half number amounts. It can be hard to display super accurate information in a pictograph, but they can still be effective.
Example: How many hats were sold in separate hat shops. 

-Histogram: I really like histograms. I like that you categorize your data in ranges. It simplifies things, but ensures you have accurate information. Histograms display your frequency distributions of data sets. This just means that it displays how often some sort of event or variable occurs in your data. It's good to use this graph when you want to know the amount of times your event or variable occurred.
Example: The height of every orange tree in an orchard. 

-Box and Whisker Plot: This graph I had a hard time assembling! I had to look up a video for this graph. I found this video to be extremely helpful, if you are struggling too, Box and Whisker Plot. This graph revolves around the median (See Previous Blog Post). This graph shows your data in comparison to the median. I found out that this type of graph is best used when dealing with large amounts of data. That way you can clearly see any outliers (points that are either a lot smaller or larger compared to your group of data) in your graph and the comparison of the data to the median.
Example: Test scores in a classroom.

-Scatter Plot: Scatter Plots help show relationships between two sets of data. They are plotted on a grid and the points are not connected by a line. These graphs can have a positive correlation (the data is moving in the same direction), they can have a negative correlation (the data is moving in opposite directions), or they could have no correlation at all (there is no real pattern displayed by the data). These graphs are best used when you want to show the relationship between two sets of data and how they affect one another.
Example: A person's height in comparison to their weight.

I hope this post helped you understand a little bit more about Pictographs, Histograms, Box and Whisker Plots, and Scatter Plots. I really struggled with these graphs, so I hope this helped someone who may have been struggling too. I found a great site that's full of Graph games for student's to play in each grade, Math Games-Graphing. This could be really great to use in a classroom! Hope you enjoyed this post!
-Brianna😊