Using Google For Education tools, it is easier than ever to create charts with your students. But you might wonder if it is necessary to learn this skill and how it might be used in the real world. I’m here to help you and learn how to create a histogram in Google Sheets.
What are histograms?
Like a bar graph, a histogram chart has values on both the vertical and horizontal axes. The difference is that while a bar graph can accurately show numbers to scale, a histogram separates and categorizes numbers in “bins” or “buckets.”
For example, if someone got 47% on their class test, it will not be represented as that number on your histogram. Rather, it will show how many students had a percentage within the 40-49% bucket.
Why are histograms used?
Histograms are used to represent continuous data in chart form. This data can be items like weight, temperature, age, etc. A number that has a value that falls within a range. For example, when representing percentages scored on a class test, the numbers collected would be continuous data as those percentages can fall between 0 and 100%.
A histogram can represent this data because once the data is charted, it’s easy to see where the patterns are within the data. With a histogram, you can see how the numbers are distributed.
Why are histograms important to teach, and why should students learn them?
Teaching students about histograms and any kind of chart, in general, is important as it teaches them how to compile, represent, and analyze that data. Different types of charts represent data in different ways, and it’s important for students to understand how charts are used and what purposes they are best used for.
Learning to use charts within Google Sheets is very important because when it comes to representing data in the real world (unless you have extremely gifted capabilities in drawing and creating a chart), most companies and schools will appreciate using an electronic chart. Not only are they easier when it comes to changing data within that chart, but they are easier to share among peers and colleagues.
When you teach students how to create a histogram in Google Sheets, it will help them understand how data is represented in a chart and distributed, how it might be skewed in certain areas, and where gaps might fall within the data.
Even if you don’t plan to use histograms in the real world, they are still a great way to get used to using various Google resources in unique and fun ways. They can also be a great tool if you want to break out of the monotony of a teaching style you might have grown stale or bored with.
How to Create a Histogram in Google Sheets
- To start creating your histogram chart, you will first need to input your data. Copy the data into a table using the row at the top for the title of your data. For example:
- Once your data is entered, you’re going to highlight the entire table and click the Insert Chart symbol:
- The chart inserted might not automatically show up as a Histogram chart. To turn your chart into a histogram chart, you first want to double-click your chart, and the chart editor will come up. Underneath Chart Type, click the dropdown and select ‘Histogram chart.’ Alternatively, you can click on your chart and then click on the 3 dots in the top right corner. From there, click ‘Edit Chart.’You now have a very simple histogram chart.
How can I make changes to my histogram chart?
It’s very easy to make changes to your chart. You can change the colours of your chart, the names appearing on your horizontal and vertical axis, the fonts and font sizes of your titles and labels, and so much more.
The following changes can all be made by clicking the Customize tab in your chart editor.
To adjust the scale of your chart, click on the axis you wish to adjust from the menu, i.e., the Vertical axis (the number values on the left-hand side of your chart, running up the side) or Horizontal axis (the number values that run along the bottom of your chart).
The default appearance of your chart and how your data is organized might not be how you want it to be visualized, so you may need to set the values yourself and use your math skills to decide what the minimum and maximum values should be! Starting at 0 is, more often than not, a good bet.
If the data is represented as percentages, set the minimum value to 0 and the maximum value to 100.
For the demonstration chart, using the values listed at the beginning of this tutorial, the numbers range from 41 to 95. We could then set the horizontal axis, the bottom of our chart, to count in 10s.
You’ll notice that our new chart shows the 0 to 100 range, but the size or interval of each range is 20. To change the intervals, you will want to change the bucket size. In your chart editor, go to Histogram, and under Bucket Size, you can choose an interval from the dropdown menu. Click the interval size you want.
For our example, we will select 10, showing us the results based on intervals of 10. Our new chart will look like so: 
To make changes to your chart title, click on Chart and Axis Titles. There are 4 different titles you can change:
- The chart title is the title that appears at the top of your chart.
- The chart subtitle is the title at the bottom of your chart.
- The horizontal axis title is what you can put under the numbers at the bottom of your chart to represent their meaning.
- The vertical axis title, which you can put on the left-hand side of your chart to represent the number meaning.
For this example, we’re going to change the chart title. Make sure ‘Chart Title’ is selected from the top dropdown menu. Under ‘Title format,’ we can select the far right box—the alignment box. From there, we can centre the title. We can also select the ‘B’ to bold our title. We can even change the colour of our text title. Let’s choose a burgundy.
The size of your title can also be adjusted.
Your chart might also have defaulted to have the title “Histogram of …” Under the Title Text section, you can remove this part of your title.
Lastly, let’s make a few cosmetic changes to our chart. To make the numbers on the bottom fit nicely, go to Horizontal Axis and under the Slant Labels dropdown, select the amount of slant you want your numbers to have. We’ll set this one to 30⁰.
To change the colour of our data, go to Series, and under the Fill Color dropdown, select the colour you want to use. You can also set the opacity of your colour and add lines. We will put a black line on our chart and set it to 4pt.
From here, if you want to have your chart on a separate slide or Google Doc, click the three vertical dots at the top right of your graph and select ‘copy chart’ from the menu. Then paste (ctrl-v) your chart into a Google Slide or Doc.
You can paste it linked, which means that anyone viewing that slide or doc will be able to select the link and go to the raw data. Or, you could paste it unlinked, like putting an image in a document. However, if you plan to add more data to your chart, when you paste it linked—if you add more data to the Google sheet—you can then update your chart to reflect that data.
Now that you know how to create a histogram in Google Sheets, I hope you will be able to use them to your advantage within the classroom. Learning ways to represent various data types is a great way to get students to love learning the different styles of charts that Google Sheets offers. This can also be an excellent way to show students how data representation works – or doesn’t work – when using a histogram.
Hopefully, teaching your students how to create a histogram in Google Sheets will give them a new appreciation for numbers and data and how they are collected and represented.
Additional Math Resources
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- The Grass Strategy – Effectively Developing Thorough Math Answers
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- How to Create a Climate Graph in Google Sheets
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