Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

My sister is in 4th grade and she is doing a project on which dog treat my dog likes best. I am trying to help her out a little by teaching her how to make a graph. So she has 5 different dog treats and she recorded the order in which my dog ate the treats for ten days. How, if it is possible, would we make a graph for that? Thanks!

Thtdancer,

There are several ways she might make a graph with these data, but here's how I would do it:

For each of the five treats, find the average (if you don't know how to do that, ask and I or someone else can explain it) order the treat was eaten in. For example, if during the 10 days a particular treat was eaten 2nd five times and 3rd five times, the average order would be 2.5. Then for the graph, put the kind of treat on the x-axis and draw a bar whose height on the y-axis represents the average order the treat was eaten in. So, if she found that Purina treats were eaten at an average position of 1.5 but Pedigree treats were eaten at an average position of 3.7, you would draw two bars, one with a height of 1.5 and one with a height of 3.7 (on a scale that goes to 5, since that's the highest order a treat could average).

Does this make sense? This is one of those times when I'd really like to be able to just draw a picture rather than use words...

Hello thtdancer--

I'm not sure how your project is going. But I drew an example graph to illustrate one way to show the results. I'm attaching it to this note and I hope you can open it and take a look.

Hope this helps--

Hello,

Although that data may sound like a lot at once, you can easily graph it using a bar graph. While most bars on bar graphs are represented as solid colors; you can break up the solid bar into smaller "stacked" colors, each representing a different treat. This way, you can have time (in weeks) on the x-axis and "stack" the different treats on the y-axis. If you need me to further describe my proposal, feel free to write me a response. Good Luck!