Drawing pie graphs activity

A pie graph shows information as pieces of a pie or a circle. Its a bit like an apple pie or a pizza which has been cut into pieces.

Tips on how to draw a pie graph

• A good pie graph is used to show proportions or percentages
• A good pie graph should be a circle with no more than five segments
• A good pie graph should have a title
• A good pie graph should have a percentage beside each segment
• A good pie graph should have a label beside each segment
• A good pie graph should have shading or colour on each segment but not patterns
• A good pie graph should have the segments going from largest to smallest starting at 12 o'clock
• A good pie graph is followed by a short sentence telling what the pie graph shows.

From the pie graph we can see that in 2000 the most popular meat was beef and veal (33%).

Activity

1. Survey the students in your class to find what meat they had for dinner last night. If they didn't have meat last night, they won't be part of the survey.
2. Show the class results on a table like this:
   

   Type of meat	Number of children	Percent
   Beef and veal
   Poultry eg chicken
   Pork
   Mutton
   Lamb

3. Show the numbers as percentages. For example, if there were 25 children in your survey and 6 of them had chicken for dinner, 6 divided by 25 multiplied by 100 gives you 24 percent.
4. Draw a pie graph to show the types of meat people in your class had for dinner last night.
5. Write a short sentence telling what your pie graph shows.
6. How do your class results compare to the pie graph from the 2002 New Zealand Official Yearbook?

Related links

Statistics New Zealand Graphics Guidelines - 2. The process of graphing
Statistics New Zealand Graphics Guidelines - 4. Graphic Standards