Lab report of Daphnia magna heart rate

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Graphing Data Using Microsoft Excel 2010 1. Identify what your independent and dependent variables are. We'll be putting the independent variable as

the x-axis, so in the Column 1. The dependent variable will be the y-axis, so in Column 2.

2. Double click on a cell to enter the column titles using the diagram as a reference. For the top row, label each column with what the information contains AND the units of that variable. For example, in the Daphnia experiment, you tested the effect of alcohol on heart rate. Therefore, the amount of alcohol (in %) was the independent variable (because it was what YOU changed between tests). The heart rate (in BPM) was the dependent variable (because you measured how it depended on the alcohol concentration), so it goes in the 2nd column.

3. Enter your data into the rows below each variable heading. Using lab 2 (Scientific Method) as a sample, the sample to the right shows how your data might look:

4. Now, click and hold the left mouse button on ONLY the DEPENDENT variable NUMBERS (B2 downward), and drag the mouse down and across until all the data IN THAT COLUMN ONLY is highlighted.

5. Then, click "Insert" on the top menu bar, and choose "Column" to create a vertical bar graph. Select the first graph option (2D, NOT stacked).

6. The chart that is created will NOT be correct – your data is not being read correctly until fix it.

7. Make sure you are on "Chart

Tools" --> "Design" and then click "Select Data."

8. A window will open for you to edit the data (see next page). You will be editing the Horizontal (Category) Axis Labels to tell the program to use your independent variable information.

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9. To do this, click "Edit" on that right side and a new box will open to select the rows.

10. Select the numbers in the independent variable by clicking A2 and dragging downward to highlight all rows.

11. Click OK, then Click OK on the next screen, too.

12. Your graph is now ready for clean-up. Click the top tab that says Chart Tools, then the Layout tab.

13. Click "Chart title" to add a title. Make the title descriptive, such as Figure 1: Alcohol Lowers Daphnia Heart Rate.

14. Click "Axis Titles" to add labels for the x and y axis. Include both what the axis represents and the unit of measure.

15. Click "Legend" & choose None. Each graph is showing only one set of data, so a legend is not needed.

16. To copy and paste the chart into a Word document report:

A) Click and drag the size of the entire chart box until you like the size and shape of the chart itself (height vs. width). You can also adjust the site of individual parts of the chart by clicking items and dragging them to new positions or sizes inside the chart box.

B) Then, click the very edge of the chart box to select the entire chart. Do NOT click inside the box because this selects specific parts of the chart instead of the whole thing.

C) Right-click (control-click on a Mac) to open a menu and choose to "copy" the chart.

D) Go to your Word document and move your cursor to the location you want to paste your chart. Go to the Paste menu, but do NOT click the regular paste – select the "Paste Special..." option and choose to paste your image as a Picture (you can choose the type).

E) Inside Word, you can adjust the size of the chart, but the dimensions (length vs. width) should remain fixed as you set them in Excel.