Graphing | What your graphs mean | Graphs that we did

Graphing

Here's how to make a graph of your experiments....

	When you do the Energy House experiments, you'll need to write down the results so that you can figure out what happened and why. Graphing is a good way to write down your results. Here's how you do it.... Start with a blank piece of graph paper. Graph paper is just paper that has lines up-and-down (vertical), and lines across (hoizontal), making many little rectangles. If you don't have any graph paper, you can easily make some by drawing lines on a paper. Make the squares as evenly-sized as you can.
	Near the bottom of the paper, draw a horizontal line for Hours. The space between the vertical lines represent an amount of time. Decide if you want to take readings every 5, 10 or 15 minutes. Then each space will stand for either 5, or 10, or 15 minutes Make sure that you have enough spaces on the paper for about 3 hours of time.
	Near the left edge of the paper, draw a vertical line for Temperature. The space between the horizontal lines represent an amount of temperature. Each space stands for one degree of temperature. Make sure that you have enough spaces on the paper for about 18 degrees (if you're using a Centigrade thermometer) or about 30 degrees (if you're using a Farenheit thermometer). Now you're ready to graph your measurements from an experiment.
	Set up the Energy House for the experiment. Begin the experiment. Read the thermometer every 5, or 10, or 15 minutes. Then mark the temperature with a dot. Make sure that you mark the dots on the correct vertical time line.
	When the experiment is all done, connect the dots with a line. That line is called the "time-temperature curve". Click here to find out what the graphs really mean! Click here to see some of the graphs we did.

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