Chart assignment
Charts to read and discuss
Read each chart, then answer its questions. Every chart shows its source and date; open it for a table of the numbers and the data to download.
Chart 1 of 2 · Food and drug safety
Which side effects are reported most for metformin?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
Nausea (30,587 reports) and diarrhea (28,674) are the reactions named most often in reports to the FDA, as of September 2026, that list a medicine containing metformin, including combination pills. Nausea and diarrhea are known stomach side effects of metformin; high blood sugar may describe the diabetes being treated, and lactic acidosis is a rare but serious known risk. A report is not proof the medicine caused the problem: anyone can send one, it lists every medicine the person was taking, and the same case can be reported twice. Reports that the medicine didn't work or was used differently than labeled are left out. Don't stop a medicine without talking to a doctor.
Questions to discuss
- In one sentence of your own, what does this chart show?
- Find the biggest change or difference in the chart. What might explain it?
- Who collected these numbers, and how recent are they? What else would you want to know before drawing a conclusion?
Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) via openFDA (Public domain (U.S. government work); source U.S. Food and Drug Administration, openFDA) · Data as of Sep 30, 2026
Open the chart and its numbersChart 2 of 2 · Climate
How much has the US warmed since 1895?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
The contiguous US averaged 54.6°F in 2025. The warmest year since records began in 1895 was 2024, at 55.5°F. Through 2025, the dashed trend line, the straight line that best fits every year, rose about 0.18°F a decade, or 2.3°F since 1895, and warming had sped up to about 0.5°F a decade since 1970. Alaska and Hawaii aren't included.
How to read this chart
Each point is one year's average temperature across the lower 48 states, in degrees Fahrenheit. The axis doesn't start at zero, so a small rise looks steep: read the numbers on the axis, not the height of the line. The dashed line is the trend, the straight line that best fits every year; single years bounce above and below it.
Questions to discuss
- Find the warmest and coolest years on the chart. How many degrees apart are they?
- Why might one year be much cooler than the year before, even while the trend line keeps rising?
- The axis doesn't start at zero here, but bar charts always do. Why is that fair for temperatures but not for bars?
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Climate at a Glance (Public domain (U.S. government work)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2025
Open the chart and its numbersTeachers: make your own chart assignment, or change this one. Free, no account needed.