This first laboratory is a review of the mathematic, statistical and graphing techniques that you will be expected to know and use during the progression of the general chemistry courses. The expression and analysis of experimental data is the focus of any science related field.  The handling of experimental data, its expression, and the interpretation of its meaning is the text of most scientific journals.  We, as scientists, devise experiments that will result in collection of data that will give us the answer to a specific problem or lend support to a hypothesis.  Most often, this data is numerical in form and must be dealt with by a combination of mathematical, graphical and statistical methods to allow for a reasonable and more importantly, reproducible result.
The purpose of this lab exercise is to demonstrate the proper way to manipulate and report experimental data. It will include a basic review of some mathematical treatments of data as well as the basics of graphing, and a review of the statistical methods used to evaluate experimental data. Much of the work done in this experiment will be conducted using Excel®. Spreadhseet programs like Excel® provide rapid and accurate ways to analyze data and their use is a vital skill that every scientist should possess.