Check out four different ways to plot geographic data (in Excel).

I’ve recently been exploring data about average school starting times using data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the primary federal agency that collects and analyzes data related to education in the U.S. and other nations. As part of my exploration, I worked with a relatively simple dataset: the average starting time in public schools across the United States. For each state, the data includes the overall average start time and the distribution of schools within 29-minute bands (i.e., 7:30 a.m.–7:59 a.m.; 8:00 a.m.–8:29 a.m.; and so forth). In this post, I’ll show four different ways to visualize this average starting time. You can learn how to create these on your own by checking out these step-by-step videos on my YouTube page or purchasing the templates directly in the shop.