My spreadsheet summarizes information about the size (area) and population of countries in Europe, comparing European countries to the state of New York. It includes information about the age and education levels of the population.
I created a chart that shows the largest countries (by population) in Europe.
To compare the size and population of NY to each European country, I (looked up then) divided the NY number by the European number (=NY/EUR). With the result formatted as a percentage, those countries where the percentage is larger than 100% are larger than NY. A country that is 200% the size of NY would be twice the size of NY, etc.
I learned that the state of New York is as large as all but about 10 of the approximately 45 countries in Europe.
Of course, the spreadsheets I have brought into class show the range of possibilities for topics spreadsheets can help us understand, but I am interested in the information that is available using the data from Culture Grams. I also think it’s interesting to know that, even though we’re learning about spreadsheets and graphing in school (making it sound pretty serious), I also use spreadsheets to record and analyze information about the track and cross country teams I coach.