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Contributor: Samantha Penna. Lesson ID: 11783
Have you ever seen an EKG, a strip of paper that shows your heartbeat? It has lines that go up and down. That is a line graph. The lines show numbers. Make a simple easy graph yourself in this lesson!
What kind of graph is shown below? What does it tell you, and how do you make one?
In the previous Graphing series Related Lessons, found in the right-hand sidebar, you learned how to read and interpret a variety of different graphs.
This lesson focuses on line graphs. You will learn how to interpret the data on line graphs and create your own line graphs. Don't forget, data is any information you collect and include on your graph.
Take a look at the graph below. This type of graph is called a line graph. One easy way to tell that a graph is a line graph is to look at how the data is shown. If the data is shown with a line, then the graph is a line graph. So far, it makes perfect sense!
The line graph below is titled, "Favorite Foods." Based on the title, what do you think this graph will be about? Share your answers with your parent or teacher.
The graph below will tell you how many people chose each food group. The choices shown on the line graph are: Pizza, Hamburger, Grilled Cheese, and Pasta. This is what people chose as their favorite food.
You can see along the left side of the line graph that there are numbers. You can also see there is a line in the graph that stops at different points. The number where the line stops at each point is how many votes each food item got.
For example, look at Pizza at the bottom of the chart. You can see the line for Pizza starts at the 7. This means seven people voted for Pizza. Take a look at the Hamburger choice. The line stops at 4. This means four people voted for Hamburger as their favorite food.
Tell your parent or teacher how many people voted for Grilled Cheese and how many people voted for Pasta according to the graph.
You can tell by looking at the line graph that eight people voted for Grilled Cheese and only two people voted for Pasta. Just by looking at the lines, you can tell Grilled Cheese is the most popular choice and Pasta is the least popular choice.
Move on to the Got It? section to look at more line graphs, where you will watch a video about line graphs and play a line graph game.
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