Spreadsheet Warm Up for SSAC Geology of National Parks Modules

This Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum module introduces students to the electronic spreadsheet as a tool for elementary calculation. The module covers some basics, including the components of a spreadsheet, the necessity of an equals symbol for cell formulas, how the mathematical concept of function applies to spreadsheets, and a few mechanical things such as copying and pasting. It also covers some basic quantitative-literacy material that will come up in later modules -- order of operation, unit conversions using proportions, order of magnitude, and a few elementary functions. The module is basically a tutorial followed by a hefty end-of-module assignment that elaborates on the QL concepts introduced in the tutorial. The data used in the spreadsheets are areas and numbers of visitors for 25 parks (10 in the tutorial, 15 in one of the end-of-module problems). This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number NSF DUE-0836566. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation