4 b. Spreadsheets

These Computer Merit Badge pages are maintained by Dr. Robert Houghton in the Department of Elementary and Middle Grades Education at the College of Education and Allied Professions, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC.

 There are many ways to solve this problem and many good software applications that enable you to complete this requirement. This work can be done with at least these following programs: Clarisworks for Macintosh or Windows computers from Apple Computer; Appleworks for Apple II series computers; Excel from Microsoft for Mac or Windows operating systems and Microsoft Works for DOS and Windows operating systems. However the general nature of this work is very similar from one application or set of applications to the next. In other words, if you know how to do it with one application, you are close to being able to do this with another.

How To: Enter Data into a Spreadsheet

Read this warning on Computing Resources Needed to Play the tutorial movies below.
Once scouters have seen these examples, they will need to modify their work appropriately to meet the needs of this requirement.
 
1. Figure out what foods you want on your campout then do some food cost research. This could mean visiting your local grocery store with your notebook and writing down the cost of items you need. It could also mean finding around the house the cash register printout which shows name of food items with costs and taking your data from that. There are also other possibilities for finding this information.

 
2. Entering Data Tutorial.

 
3. Once you have seen how to enter data, open your own spreadsheet and enter your own weekend campout food budget data. Have one column for food, a second column for number of items of that kind of food, a third column for the cost of each item, and a fourth column which shows the total cost for each food.
4. Study the help files that come with your spreadsheet program to learn how to multiply to find the cost for each food and to learn how to add the entire column of cost of all foods. Learning to use the help files on your own computer are an important part of your computer literacy.

 
5. Take your completed spreadsheet to your merit badge counselor.