Curve Graphing in MS Excel and Applications

One unique feature of the computer as a teaching and learning tool is visualization. This powerful visualization capacity of the computer is unprecedented and incomparable with all other traditional teaching aids. Now abstract concepts that have proved difficult for teachers to explain or for students to grasp using traditional teaching approaches or aids can now easily be produced and understood using the powerful animation and graphical display capabilities of computers. Inline with this development, many specialized software are developed for graphics, and many others are having graphics as one of their capabilities. MS Excel is one of the latter. As a result, not many people are aware that one can use the software to sketch some sophisticated graphs. In this note, we shall show how MS Excel can be used to sketch different types of graphs and use them in some applications such as root finding or parametric studies. Although all what we are going present here can be implemented using other more specialized software and sometimes even more efficiently or effectively. The reasons for choosing Excel are for the fact that, the program is widely available. Furthermore, no purchase of any specialized software is necessary. Also, the ideas will help teachers and students in teaching and learning many things that have to do with graphs. And the moment users get a grip of the ideas, they will be in full control of the implementation, and therefore increase their level of creativity.