MS Excel and Chocolate !

Learn how to data enter in a spread sheet and create a simple formula for calculations
all in a fun easy to do 1 hour lesson !

Get packets of M&Ms for each pair of students.

Have the students open the package and tally totals for each color.

Then have the students input the tallys into Excel.

 

In Column A, lets add the color names

Begin with Cell A3 by clicking in that cell. and type BLUE. Then hit the down arrow and
enter the colors in the order provided below.

Blue

Brown

Green

Red

Yellow

Orange

Then skip one Cell and Type “Total”

In Column B type in your numeric data.  Type number then hit Enter

Show Students how they can use the mouse or arrow keys to navigate to any cell they want.

Then in Column B in the cell just to the right of where you typed “Total”

Hit the Summation symbol

It looks like a big Greek E

The marching ants border will then “Guess” as to what it is that you want to add up.  Click and drag around all the number you just type (no more)

Hit enter and like “magic” you will see a total.  Note that this formula is different than just typing the total in the cell.  It is dynamic and will vary as the data in the spreadsheet varies. 

After you get your total your sheet should look like this

You now have enough information on your spreadsheet to do a Pie Chart.

Why a Pie Chart?   Because a pie chart is useful for displaying information that relates to the whole.  In this case like how for instance red M&Ms relate to whole package.

Using Chart Wizard info

Click the Chart Wizard Tool (circled above)

Then Select Pie Chart and then any of the Chart sub-types

Click Next...Make sure Series in Columns is check off... as data is presented in a column for our example.

On Step Three of the Wizard  Click the Data Labels Tab

and check off Show Label and Percent and Click Next and Finish  !

Now View your results !

Note you can now edit your chart to look better.  For instance you can select each slice and then double click it.  This will bring up a color picker from which you can select Red for Red and Orange for orange etc.

Pretty cool, huh?