TinkerPlots Movies

Get an introduction to TinkerPlots.

• Using data about 24 cats, build your own graphs by ordering, stacking, and separating case icons.
• Then use these operations to make and use stacked dot plots.
• Other features demonstrated include mix-up, color key, reference lines, drawing tool, icon resizing, and undo.

Learn how to get new data into TinkerPlots.

• First make a new stack of data cards, create attribute names and units, and enter data for a few cases in a backpack study.
• Then use to enter data more quickly, and to detect and correct data-entry errors.
• Finally, copy data from a spreadsheet and paste them into TinkerPlots, and import data directly from a web page.

Learn to make and interpret four common graphs using TinkerPlots.

• First examine the amount of money 82 high-school students were carrying by using binned and fully separated dot plots.
• Then transform a dot plot of these data into a value bar graph to show the relation between these two types of graphs.
• Returning to the dot plot, transform it into a histogram.
• Finally, make and use pie graphs to explore whether boys are more likely than girls to have a curfew.

Learn how TinkerPlots can help make group comparisons.

• Use several methods to investigate whether members of unions tend to be paid more than non-union members.
• First use dividers to compare how many cases from each group are above a cut-off point. This is a technique many students use, and we discuss why they should use percents when the groups are of different sizes.
• Go on to use dividers, medians, and hat plots to compare where the data in each group are centered, and how they are spread.

Learn how to use TinkerPlots features and graphs to see how two numeric attributes are related.

• First use time-series graphs to see how temperature changed over 111 consecutive days in New York City.
• Then use the same graphs to look at how measures of ground-level ozone changed over the same period.
• Finally, investigate how temperature and ozone are related. Begin with a color gradient display that students find easy to interpret and transform it in several steps into a scatter plot with a hand-drawn line of fit.