One issue middle-school students have is managing their time wisely. Any class can have students perform data analysis on how students spend their time each week. Students should track the amount of time they spend at school, using digital media, playing sports, eating, sleeping and any other activity students perform in a normal day. Excel will help with this data analysis, because students can enter each task into a single column on Excel and then type the amount of time in minutes next to each task. Students can then create a graph of the time they spend on each task. Teachers can use the graphs to help students better manage their time, especially if students are spending too much time on recreational activities and not enough time on school work.
Students can create surveys for any middle-school class. For example, students in English can create a survey about time spent reading, while students in social studies can create opinion polls about current events. Once students create the survey, they can poll other students in the school and enter the data into an Excel document. Students can graph the data and use the visual representation to draw conclusions about their polls. For example, a math lesson on percentages can ask students to examine their data and determine what percentage of students responded each way on a particular survey.
Middle-school students taking algebra, trigonometry or geometry can use Excel to graph complex mathematical functions. Excel is especially useful here for schools that do not have a class set of graphing calculators for students to use. Instead of graphing algebraic equations on a calculator, students can enter the data into Excel and use Excel functions to graph the equations.
Middle-school students in social studies can use Excel to graph historical trends and make inferences based on the data. For example, students studying the U.S. Civil War can enter into Excel casualties by side, by state or by year. Students can use Excel functions to total up the casualties, create averages about casualties or graph the casualties. With these extensive lists of data calculated quickly by Excel, students can spend more effort on analyzing the data and using their inferences in class discussion or presentation setting.