Introduction to Data Analysis Using SAS® Graphics Accelerator - Instructor Materials
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Introductory Modules
Why Care about data?
Objectives
- Present a real-world example of how students can use data for things they care about
- Use graphs to answer basic, but interesting, questions
Materials
- Tactile and large print bar chart from the SAS gallery: gravity by planet
Activities
- Have students explore the bar charts and identify the type of data displayed in each bar chart
- Have students discuss why the information in this chart is useful and/or interesting
- Answer basic, but interesting, questions about the data:
- Which planet has the strongest gravitational force? the weakest?
- Which planet would be the hardest to walk on?
- Could you jump higher on Mars or Saturn?
Graph Basics
Objectives
- Identify components of a graph: X-axis, y-axis, title, axes labels
- Identify different types of data commonly shown on graphs: Numeric, character, time, and categorical
- Identify the uses for bar charts: comparing a single measure across several variables
- Identify the uses for pie charts: examining the frequency or percentage of each variable in a dataset
- Identify the uses for line and series charts:
- Line charts show how one numeric variable changes relative to another numeric variable
- Series charts show how a numeric variable changes over time. A series chart is a specific type of line chart
Materials
- Large print and tactile graphs of:
- Bar chart showing gravity by planet
- Pie chart showing the composition of Earth's atmosphere from NASA
- Line chart of y=x
- Series chart of relative temperature per year from NASA
Activities
- Identify the chart and axes titles
- Have students explain what the chart and axes titles tell you about the graph
- Identify the labels on the axes
- Have students identify which labels are numeric and which are categorical
- Describe what each chart shows
- Identify type of data on each chart:
- What type of data is displayed on each axis?
- Which graphs have categorical data on the x-axis?
- Which graphs have numeric data on the x-axis?
- Have students identify other types of data they could represent on the three types of charts (bar, pie, line)
Introduction to sonification and the SAS Graphics Accelerator
Objectives
- Define sonification:
- Using sound to communicate information
- pitch, panning motion
- Explain and demonstrate the SAS Graphics Accelerator
Materials
- Tactile/large print and sound recordings of the 4 below SAS sample graphs:
Sample Graphs
Activities
- Play the recording of sample 1 (graph of y=x) to introduce students to sonification
- Have students describe the shape of the graph in sample 1 before passing out any of the tactile/large print graphs
- Provide students with tactile or large print versions of all 4 charts
- Play each sound recording and have students order the tactile/large print graphs to match the order of the sound recordings. It may be necessary to play the sound recordings out of order
Learning to Use SAS Graphics Accelerator
After students have completed the above introductory modules, ask them to complete the student materials .