You’re floating along on the Lazy River and almost out of the Water Park. Bet you’re soaked, huh? Do you feel a little flooded with database smarts? Well, it’s time to put all that knowledge to work! This week and next week, you will create a personal database that can be enjoyed for a long time. Your database will be jam-packed with friend and family phone numbers, mailing addresses, and other interesting data. This week you will create the database and next week you will use it to print your very own wild and wacky phone directory.
The phone’s ringing! Answer it!
Review
Let’s start out slow and easy with a short True/False database and spreadsheet quiz while floating down Lazy River.
Plan
Before you jump into creating a database from scratch,
let’s stop and think about the information you would like
to see in your file. What would you like to know about your friends,
classmates and family? Here are a few ideas to get you started.
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Mrs. Iva Greatclass wants a database like this because she likes to send postcards to her students’ parents about behavior and grades.
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Remember A.G. and his crazy friends database?
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Allison likes to cook for her friends on their birthdays. Look at the fields she created.
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Be creative! In addition to the normal fields (name, address, phone number, birthday), try fields that interest you, like: NICKNAME, FAVORITE TOOTHPASTE, FAVORITE TV SHOW, FAVORITE VIDEO GAME, HOW YOU’RE GROUNDED . . .
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Print and use this page to jot down your own ideas!
Stuff You Need to Know
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It is important that all information is entered in a consistent way. In other words, if you create a field called "Favorite Sport" and two of your friends like basketball, don’t enter BBall for one friend and basketball for another. If you do, you’ll have trouble sorting your records later on. Instead, choose one way to type it every time.
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You can change and add fields any time after the database has been created and saved.
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You can add and change the data for your fields any time after the database has been created and saved. Wow! You can make your database as large as you like!
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You can change the way your database looks! Use different fonts, colors and sizes, add borders, shading, and graphics. (Worried about copyright problems? Use Pics4Learning.com copyright-friendly images. They link to other copyright-friendly image collections, too! Don’t forget to check those!)
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Get in the habit of saving after every new record you add. You never know when the power will go out!
Create
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Open your favorite database program and create a new file.
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Add the fields you planned for earlier. Remember, you can change them later on if necessary.
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SAVE your work, using your name in the file name. You don’t want your file confused with another student’s file, do you?
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Collect the data from your friends, family and classmates.
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Add this data to your database and remember to save often!
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You will continue adding to your database next week. Collect as much data as possible this week. Here’s a timesaver: Print and make copies of this form for your classmates and family. Ask friends and family to complete the form. Use the forms to enter their data in your database.
If you created a database for your research project a few weeks ago, you should have plenty of records by now. There are several ways to view and play around with your records. When you’re in list view, the records are usually shown in a long scrolling list and each record is displayed separately. Find view lets you search for certain information. The layout view is the place to design how your data will appear on the screen and on paper.
Sort the records in your database. Remember, they can be sorted alphabetically or numerically in ascending or descending order. Look for patterns in your data. Read between the records! Draw conclusions about the information you have collected on the research topic.
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