Laboratory Help Page

This page is designed to provide helpful information about the laboratory questions. You will find more details in the Laboratory manual that accompanies this course (available @ Aztec shop)

Begin this lab and every lab by introducing yourself to your partner. Determine the times when you can meet together during the week before the lab is due at your next Lab session. If your schedules are totally incompatible, then notify me immediately.

We will begin with login procedures, setting up printers, and perform some file management. Most of these details will be covered on the special help page. You should start this lab and each lab by typing the name of each team member and your group number on the Cover Page (or a copy of it). For general rules of what is expected in the Lab, read the Laboratory Guidelines.

Question 1: Most students find it easiest to work on the lab by using the copy from the web and entering answers between the questions. (The copying of the Labs is best done using Internet Explorer; however, most other operations for these labs is more easily done using Netscape, especially downloads.) The special help page gives directions on copying the web Lab page to a New Word document. The special help page also gives directions for grabbing the Excel file from your lab (through the hyperlink). You follow the directions in the lab and according to the Lab guidelines to create a good graph of the two intersecting lines. You may want to follow the directions in the Sample Lab or in the special Excel Help section.

In the second part of this question, you'll need to open Equation Editor in Word (after solving the problem on scratch paper). Some instructions to help you with this are given in the Word help section (simply go to the insert...object...Equation Editor from the menu bar)..

Question 2: This problem introduces you to using the Graphing template that is provided. Details of using the Graphing template will be covered in Lab and are detailed on the special help page. This time you create the graph in Excel, then repeat the procedure from Question 1 to obtain a good looking graph.

Question 3: You and your partner will want to have a good watch and cooperate on collecting the data on the number of chirps by each of the crickets that are listed at the bottom of your lab. Use the models from the lecture notes to obtain the appropriate temperatures. For the graph, you can once again use the graphing template for drawing the models from their formulae (or any other way you may have learned to draw straight lines in Excel). Next you enter your data on the spreadsheet and use the Add Data part under the Chart Options to place this on the graph. After you click on Add Data, you will have a new window. You highlight the data you want to add, then check the "Catergories (X Values) in First Column" and "OK." You will need to change these data from lines to points. This is done by double clicking on the data points. A window pops up and you specify Line (None) and Marker (Automatic). Most of the calculations can be done either by hand or on the Excel spreadsheet. Once you have decided the layout of the table that you want, then in the Word document for your Lab, you go to the Table menu in Word and follow the directions to create the desired table. There are plenty of options for making it look good. You should certainly have labels and at least borders to delineated your information. At all stages of the development of your lab, you should practice writing good, clear sentences (including spelling, with which Word should help you).