Bar graph definition: A visual way to EASILY compare quantities. Bar graphs are graphs (just like any other graph) and the point of them is to compare data.
Bar graphs have three keys items that make them special.
1. Easy To Read: You only have to look at a few things to understand what each bar graph is comparing. They’re big. They’re colorful. You can easily see trends like increasing, decreasing, or flat.
2. Customizable: On any bar graph, you can change several parts of it to make it work better for you. You can change the scale to measure very small (or very large) quantities. You can double or triple them by putting bars beside each other. Bar graph configurations are endless.
3. Easy to Make: Bar graphs aren’t complicated. They just compare numbers. They compare groups. Once you understand their parts, you’ll see they’re easy to make.
If you worked at a sandwich shop, you could make a bar graph of how many sandwiches you sold this week. You could have bars for each day of the week. You could even have different groups showing the different kinds of sandwiches. Making a bar graph would show you what are the most popular sandwiches, and which day of the week you are the busiest.
In the video, you’ll see a bar graph called “Favorite Movie Type by Grade Level.” It shows four groups of movies: Action, Documentary, Drama, and Sports. If you look closely, you’ll see that this is a special bar graph called a double bar graph. We don’t just show one grouping of people, we show two. The blue bars show the favorite movie type for kids in Grade 10, the red bars show the favorite movie type for kids in Grade 11. Each category has both groups.
Also in the video, you’ll see how easy bar graphs are to make.
First you draw the axes. We draw the vertical axis, which uses numbers to compare. Then going left and right we draw the horizontal axis, which uses categories to group things.
The vertical axis on this graph is measuring Hot Air Balloons. They are measured individually.
The horizontal axis on this graph is measuring months of the year. For this example, we use June, July, and August.
Then all we have to do is count and show the number of hot air balloons that get flown in each month.
Each bar graph needs a title. This title shows what we’re measuring, hot air balloons made (by month).
Finally, the graph needs a key. In the example shown, the green bar shows the number of hot air balloons.
Take a look at the video for explanation and examples.