Interested in finding additional sources of good data quickly?

Below is a list of pre-approved Web sites that contain interesting and fun data for you and your students to analyze. There are two ways to enter this data into Graph Master:
1) Type the data into Graph Master yourself
2) Save the data in tab-delimited text format and open in Graph Master
(click for tips)

Science    Social Studies    And More...    Tips

Endangered Species
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provides data on threatened and endangered species in the United States. To access data:
1. Click the Download link under Listed Species Information, Proposed and Candidate Species Information, or Delisted Species Information.
2. Choose a group type (if required)
3. Choose Tab-Delimited W/Fields Unquoted under Output Format
4. Click Submit
5. When data appears, choose Save As from the File menu.
6. Choose Text (or Plain Text) from the pull-down menu.
7. Click Save. A file will be saved to your hard drive.
8. Open the file in Graph Master. (Note: If you are unable to find the saved file, make sure you choose All Files or Text Files in the Files of Type pull-down menu.)

Weather
The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration provides an easy way to search for data on national, state, or local weather. Their Storm Events database includes data on hurricanes, tornados, forest fires, floods, and other extreme weather events. To use the database:
1. Select your state from the pull-down menu and click Continue.
2. Set parameters for your search.
3. Click List Storms.

U.S. Historical Census Data
The United States Historical Census Data Browser offers an easy way to browse census data (1790 to 1960). To locate data, click a year (i.e. 1800), then highlight a variable of interest and click Browse.

U.S. Census Bureau
The Statistical Abstract of the United States, published by the U.S. Census Bureau, offers an extensive summary of data about the United States. Data covers a wide range of topics including population, health, education, geography, elections, business, communications, science, 20th century statistics, and more!

World Factbook
The CIA's World Factbook offers statistics on nations worldwide. Data covers a range of areas, including: Geography, People, Government, Economy, Communication, Transportation, Military, and Transnational Issues.

Data and Story Library
The Data and Story Library (DASL) is an online library of data files and stories that illustrate the use of basic statistics methods. These files include real-world examples of data on a wide variety of topics. Click List All Topics for a list of data sets by subject area.

Fact Monster
Fact Monster™ from Information Please® offers facts and data on a variety of topics, including: World & News, People, U.S., Math, Science, and Sports.

InfoPlease
InfoPlease offers facts and data on a variety of topics, including: World, United States, History and Government, Biography, Sports, Entertainment, Business, Society & Culture, Health & Science, and Weather.

BestPlaces
Sperling's BestPlaces includes a rich database of information comparing different cities in the United States. Compare crime rates, climate, cost of living, salaries, schools and more! First choose the cities, then choose the parameters you want to compare.

Following are some tips for saving data in tab-delimited text format so that it can be opened in Graph Master. (A tab-delimited text file is a text file containing text separated by tabs.)
Note: These are general guidelines. The exact steps may vary depending on your computer, operating system, and the type of word processing software you are using.

1. Check the data format
In order to copy data into Graph Master, the data must appear in one of the following formats:

• as tab-delimited text

• as a table, in which text can be highlighted

2. Copy the data
On the Web, highlight (select) the data you are interested in using. Make sure only to highlight text that will be included in the Graph Master data table (i.e. column headers and data). Do not highlight titles, footnotes, or descriptive text. (This extra text can be copied into the notebook at a later time.) Copy the highlighted data by using CTRL-C (Windows) or COMMAND-C (Macintosh).

3. Paste the data into a word-processing file
Open a word-processing or spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Word or Excel and paste the copied text into a new file.
If you paste into a word-processing program, make sure that …

• only text (separated by tabs) is copied into the file. If other graphic elements such as borders or table cells appear, then these steps will not work.

• text that will appear in each cell in your Graph Master data table should be separated by tabs. If text is separated by spaces rather than tabs, you'll have to reformat the file.

• text for each row is separated by a paragraph break (Return or Enter).

4. Save the file as tab-delimited text.
To save your file as tab-delimited text, follow these steps:

• Choose Save As from the file menu

• Type a name for your data set file
• If you are using Excel or Microsoft Word, go to the Save File as Type pull-down menu (Macintosh) or the Save as Type pull-down menu (Windows) and choose Text (Tab Delimited) or Text Only.

• If you are using AppleWorks, go to the Save As pull-down menu and choose ASCII Text.

• Click Save.

5. Open the file in Graph Master
Open Graph Master. From the main screen, choose Open a Data Set. If you are using a Windows machine, choose Text Files or All Files under the Files of Type pull-down menu. Locate the file you saved in Step 4 and open it in Graph Master!