How to Use Excel

Microsoft Excel is easy to use and has very many features so the more you use it the more you learn. The Excel spreadsheet has great documentation through the built-in help menu.

We also have a collection of Example Excel Activities that show how Excel can be used in class. There are introductory activities that focus more on the mechanics of using Excel in science context as well as more advanced activities which assume more knowledge of Excel and use it as a tool to explore more in-depth concepts.

Other Useful References

• Intro to Excel is one of the handouts available from the Shodor Computational Science Institute . There are also two examples of using Excel linked at the bottom of the Intro page.
• Resources Graphing Tutorial: Graphing with Excel (more info) Basics. This site includes lessons titles such as: Data input into cells, Creating a scatter plot and line graph. Advanced: Bar graphs and histograms, Importing text files, Final formatting, Regression lines, Superimposing graphs, Descriptive statistics, Selecting data for display.
• An Excel tutorial written by Andrew T. Gannon of Birmingham-Southern College, Birmingham AL.
• This Template for Using Functions in an Intro Geology Class (Acrobat (PDF) 144kB Apr18 05) was generated at a 2002 NAGT workshop on Teaching Quantitative Skills in a Geoscience Context. This is especially helpful in designing questions and activities for students. Other information and activities can be found on the Teaching Quantitative Skills in the Geosciences website.
• DISCUS (more info) , created by Neville Hunt and Sidney Tyrrell 1995 School of Mathematical and Information Sciences , Coventry University, CV1 5FB, UK. The site has downloadable Excel documents that can serve as turorials, examples, and templates.
• Excel Cheat Sheet (Acrobat (PDF) 94kB Jan12 06) a two-page document with the basics of using Excel from Sean Fox at Carleton College. Appropriate for college science students.