Geography: Natural Disasters

Hints for using Excel

In this assignment, you will use Excel to

organize and plot your data. The

following is a very small subset of the

operations you can perform in Excel.

Getting started

If you’ve never used Excel before, open

a table by double clicking on it, or start

the program and open the file. You will

see a grid of cells. Each can store

information, which can be a number,

text, a date or any other type of data.

The table is really just the same as a

paper data table, with columns of similar

data and rows of specific events.

If you click on a cell, you will see the

complete contents on the line at the top

of the window. You can edit this by

clicking on it and typing; pressing enter,

tab, or one of the arrow keys will save

the edited information in the cell and

move to an adjoining cell.

If you see cells that show ####, then the

column is not wide enough. Click and

drag on the border of the column

heading to increase the column width.

Sorting your data

It isn’t necessary to sort the table; you

can compile your data without doing so.

A table can, however, be sorted in

ascending or descending order by any

column. The order can be numeric or

alphabetic.

First click on any single cell in the table.

At the top of the window on the menu

bar click on Data, then choose Sort from

the menu. Excel should now “select” all

of the data in the table and indicate this

by highlighting all of the cells on the

page. This is important – you don’t

want to mix up the table.

A “Sort” box should now appear. If

your table has a row at the top with

column headings (which the output from

the web page does), check “my data has

headers”.

You can click the “Sort by” pulldown

and choose a column to order your data

by. You may further select more

columns to then sort by clicking “Add

Level”

Click Ok to sort the table. If you have

chosen the disaster type as the sort

column, they will now be grouped

together for easy selection and

compilation. If you sort by date (“year

began”), they will be listed in time order.

This sort procedure is for Excel 2007,

2010 and 2013. In Excel 2003, it looks

just a bit different but functions very

similarly.

Compiling your data

You will need to do some compilation

on your disasters before you plot. For

example, if you are plotting by date, you

will need to decide on a suitable time

interval. You might choose every

decade, every two decades or some other

time interval. You should, if possible,

choose such that most intervals have at

least one disaster. Then count up the

number of disasters, number of fatalities,

etc for each interval. If you are plotting

by type, count up the number of disasters

of each type. If you are plotting by

province or region, count up the number

of disasters for each province or region.

You will; need to create two new

columns in the table. They can be off by

themselves, on a new sheet, or in an

entirely new table. In the left column,

list the intervals, types, province or

regions. In the corresponding row in the

right column, put the number of disasters

you compiled as above. Two examples:

Prov. Hurricanes

NL 7

NS 3

NB 2

PEI 0

QC 11

ON 7

MB 6

SK 8

AB 5

BC 12

YT 0

NWT 3

NU 0

Time Interval Fires

1900-1920 2

1920-1940 7

1940-1960 0

1960-1980 0

1980-2000 6

2000-PRES 3

Click on the top left cell of this new

table, hold down the left mouse button

and drag down and to the right. Keep

dragging to select and highlight all of the

rows and the two columns in the table.

Now you can plot your data. In Excel

2007, 2010 or 2013, choose the Insert

menu. You can then select a type (Line

is good, Column may be better or worse)

and subtype (Line with Markers, or 2D

Column) of chart and your plot will

appear. You can modify most aspects of

the plot by right clicking on it and

choosing an option. You can choose

another chart type if you think it works

better with your data.

In Excel 2003, click the Chart Wizard

button on the standard toolbar at the top

of the screen just underneath the menus.

It looks like a tiny little bar chart. Step 1

of the Chart Wizard will appear.

Select a chart type (Line?) and subtype

(choose one with points joined by lines).

Again, if you want to use another type,

that’s fine as long as it shows your data

clearly. Click Next.

If you have organized your columns as

above, you should now see a preliminary

version of the graph you are about to

make. Click Next.

In this window (the third) you can enter

a descriptive chart title and labels for the

X and y axes. Click next.

Finally, choose the location of the plot

(either will do) and click “finish”. The

chart should appear.

Saving is always important.

You can right click on the border of the

chart near the edge and select Copy.

Click in your Word document where you

are typing the brief description and

choose Edit then Paste. Alternately, you

can just print it out.