How comfortable are you with reading graphs? Have you ever found them to be useful or meaningful to your life? Are you ever confused or intimidated by them? What strategies do you use to read, interpret and evaluate them?
How important is graph literacy? Is it taught in your school? Where do you see graphs in your everyday life?
This week, The Upshot, a Times section devoted to visualizing the data behind its news stories, celebrated its 10th birthday by publishing a collection of its greatest hits — graphs, charts, maps and histograms on topics such as regional dialects in the United States, “Game of Thrones,” Covid school closures, and the best ‘Wheel of Fortune’ strategy.
Scroll through the collection and scan the various graphs and other visualizations. Pick one that you find most interesting, relevant or visually appealing to you: What caught your attention and why? What did you notice and wonder? What story does the graph tell that a typical text-based article couldn’t? Does the Upshot article make you appreciate the value of graphs more than before?
Tell us in the comments, and then read the related article to learn more about The Upshot and its 10th anniversary collection. Want more graphs to explore? Then visit the Learning Network’s weekly feature “What’s Going On in This Graph?”
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
