G201                                                                                      Name_______________________________

Assignment #1                                                                     Due Date:  Mon. Oct 21th  or Tue Oct 22st

Investigation of the EarthScope Project

 

The purpose of this assignment is familiarize you with the EarthScope project and prepare you to analyze data generated EarthScope in order to calculate the relative motion of the NW United States.  If, after you finish this first assignment, you still have questions about what the EarthScope project is or the instrumentation it uses be sure to come talk with me! 

 

This assignment is in two parts.  Part one is designed to familiarize you with the EarthScope project while part two will teach you graphing skills you will need for a future assignment. 

 

If you have questions or don’t understand something please be sure to email me or come talk with me.  Finally you need to answer the following questions based on the EarthScope web page listed below:

 

PART ONE   What is EarthScope:    http://www.earthscope.org/

 

 Read over the EarthScope web page.  Be sure to read carefully and look/read over ALL the pages you find.  This includes the links labeled science, observatories, instrumentation etc…  When you have  spent some time reading over the page, answer the following questions.  BE SURE TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS IN YOU OWN VOICE…DO NOT CUT AND PASTE OR COPY FROM THE WEB SITE.

 

What is the purpose of the EarthScope program?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What instruments have been deployed by EarthScope and what they are being used for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is SAFOD and what do they hope to understand by using it?

 

 

 

 

 

How many seismographs are currently deployed?

 

How many GPS units?

 

How many Strain meters?

 

Who will be able to use the data generated by the different instruments deployed by the EarthScope project?

 

 

 

 

 

 

From EarthScope’s home page, click on the “current status map” on the right side of the page.  Play around with this map (use the pull down menus etc and see what you can do with this page). What does this map show and how could it be useful?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last part of this exercise is to help familiarize you with creating graphs in Excel. Excel is a spread sheet program that is often used to graph and show trends in data.   In science, a common type of graph that is created is known as a scatter graph.  Scatter graphs plot a series of data points, and then, a best fit line is place on the points to show the trend of the data.  The data is then used to help explain a process or idea.  The following exercise will walk you though the creation of a graph and placing a trend line on the data. Use the following instructions the computer program Excel to learn how to create a graph.

 

 If you have problems working through this exercise, please talk with me.  Don’t wait till the day (or hour) before it’s due to say something. 

 

Part 2:   NOTE:  GRAPHS DO NOT APPEAR ON THE WEB PAGE.  USE THE HANDOUT GIVEN IN CLASS TO SEE EXAMPLES OF THE GRAPHS!

CREATING A GRAPH USING EXCEL (XP NOT Vista)

All graphs start with a data set.  This is series of numbers that can be plotted against each other to show a trend or help explain a relationship.  The first step of this process is to open an Excel spreadsheet and enter the data into two separate columns as shown below.  This is the sample data set you will use for this exercise. 

x

y

4

5

6

10

7

13

5

6

5

6.5

5.5

8

4

4

6.5

12

5.9

11

5

7

6

9

5.5

7

4.8

6

 

At this point we have only labeled the data as the x-axis and the y-axis.  When you graph in excel, the left data column always graphs as the x-coordinate and the right data column as the y-coordinate.  Now that you have entered the data into the spreadsheet let’s create a graph with it.

  • Use your mouse and highlight the two columns of numbers.
  • On the pull down menu at the top of the page click on “Insert” and then select the “chart “ option.
  • When the new window opens, scroll down to the “X,Y (scatter)” option and highlight it then click on the next button at the bottom of the window.
  • The window that opens won’t be needed for this exercise so again, click the next button at the bottom of the window to move on.
  • The window you are looking at now will allow you to create a title for your graph and to label the axis.  In the spaces provided, make up a title for your graph, and label the x and y axis.  When you have done this click on the next button at the                                             bottom of the window.
  • This last window that opens allows you to decide where you want your graph placed in the spreadsheet.  If you click on the first option (the one NOT automatically selected) the graph will take up an entire page.  YOU DO NOT WANT TO DO THIS.  Instead, use the option that is selected “an object in”…  then, in the pull down space, select sheet 2.  This will place your graph on a separate sheet from your data.  When you make this selection, click on the finish button at the bottom of the window. You can scroll between the various sheets in your project by clicking on the labels “sheet 1”, “sheet 2”, and “sheet 3” at the bottom of the page. 

 

You should now have a graph that looks something like this:

 

Once you have created your graph, you can change the way it looks.  You can remove and add data, change the symbol used for the data points (square vs diamond…), add a trend line, change the background, change the axis font/scale etc…  To do any of these changes, you must first click on your chart once (to make sure it is active) then click on the “chart” pull down menu at the top of the window and select chart options.  From here you can change the way your chart looks.  Before you start to “play” with your chart, create a copy.  This way you will have the original you created and you can compare how it changes as you play with it a bit.  To create a copy of your chart do the following:

·         Click once on your chart to make it active

·         Right click with the mouse on the chart

·         Select “copy” from the menu that appears

·         Reposition your mouse to a clean location on the spreadsheet

·         Right click your mouse and select “paste”.

Any changes you make to the graph, you can now make on the copy of the graph.

 

Do the following to the second graph you created:

 

·         Resize the graph.  Do this by making the graph active, then place your mouse on one of the side or corner dots that appear.  You can click and hold down on those dots and move the mouse to stretch the graph.  RESIZE YOUR SECOND GRAPH

 

·         Remove the Legend from the graph: The legend is the box on the right side of the graph that says “Series 1”.  If you have more than one group of data points that you want to compare against each other it is important to keep the legend.  For this exercise though, we only have the one set of data so by removing the legend we create a larger graph.  The legend can be removed 2 ways.  The first (and easiest) is to single click on it so it is active then hit the “delete” button.  The other option is to use the pull down “chart” menu as described earlier and click on the legend option.  Here you can choose a “don’t show” option.  REMOVE THE LEGEND FROM YOUR SECOND GRAPH

 

· Renaming your chart and the axis:  This can be done two ways.  First you can use the pull down “chart” menu described earlier, or you can use your mouse and click once on the words you want to change.  This makes them active.  Then use your mouse and highlight the text and type in the new text.  DO THE FOLLOWING:   Label you x-axis “Height”.  Label your y-axis “Shoe Size”.  Re-title your chart “Height vs Shoe Size”.

Notice in the last picture, I removed the background color from the graph.  This can be done by selecting the area on the graph where the color is, then hitting the delete button on the keyboard. I also changed the style of the data points.  Do this by double click on a data point and change it to one of the options offered.

 

·         Change the font size on an axis:  The easiest way to do this is to double click on the line that represents either the x or y axis.  This will open the options for that particular axis.  Now from here you can change the font size, type, scale, patterns of the tick marks on the axis etc.  FOR EACH AXIS, change the font style and size, the scale and add the minor tick marks on the y-axis.  Change the font size and style of the chart title.

        

 

·         Adding a Trendline:  Trendlines are added to data to show a relationship.  A trendline is a line that represents the “best fit” line for  the data.  IT IS NOT A LINE THAT CONNECTS ALL THE DATA POINTS.  To add a trend line make the graph active, then use the pull down “chart” menu at the top of the window. Select “add trendline”.  When this window opens, the linear option should be selected. This is what you want so hit the ok button.  You should now have a best fit line on your data.  If you want to change how the line looks (color, weight, style) double click on the line and a window will appear for you to change the look.  ADD A TRENDLINE TO YOUR GRAPH.

 

Finally, print off a page that has a copy of both your first and last graph.  Do this by selecting the page (not the graph) that your graphs are on.  Click on print preview.  If it is showing just one graph then you have one of the graphs selected and not the page.  If the graphs won’t fit on one page, resize them so they will.  Turn your graphs in with your assignment.

 

Your final task is to interpret your data. 

 

In the space below, tell me what the data in your graph is suggesting.