Monday

Comet spreads the cleaned Commons Count sheets across a long workbench at Starling Commons.

"The council wants to see what members asked for," she says. "They want something they can understand quickly."

Keeper Ines leans over from the front desk. "Forty rows of codes will not do that," she says with a smile.

Wren reads the cleaned Q3 totals out loud: 13, 11, 9 and 5, plus one blank and one invalid answer.

"What do you notice?" he asks. "Which choice is biggest, and by how much?"

Comet frowns. "I have to read every number and do the math in my head."

Nova hovers above the bench. "Would you like a hint?" she asks. "What if each number became something you could see?"

Comet turns to you. "You are our data analyst. Help us picture this."

Which picture tells the truth about our data most clearly?

This week you will draw the Commons Count data by hand: bars, lines, a pie and dots.

Tables, diagrams, text and other visuals can all share what data show.

A table lists every exact number in rows and columns.

A sentence can explain one finding in words.

A graph turns each number into a shape, such as a bar, that people can compare.

This is made-up data from the Commons Count story.

Thirty-eight of the 40 answers are valid. The crew graphs the four valid choices and writes a note about the blank and the invalid answer.

A title gives a short explanation of what the graph shows.

A source line says where the data came from. It gives credit to those who collected the data.

On a bar graph, the y-axis usually holds the numbers. The crew writes the group names along the bottom, on the x-axis.

A legend tells what each bar or color stands for.

Strong start, data analyst. Tomorrow you will choose between a bar graph and a pie chart for the Q3 answers.