Teaching Google Sheets Functionality to High School Students through Open Data
NYC Open Data Week – March 25, 2026
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Speaker: Ethel Khanis - High School Chemistry Teacher, Virtual Innovators Academy
Moderator: Aryanna Holder - NYC Open Data
Introduction and Classroom Context
Ethel Khanis introduces the session by explaining that she teaches chemistry, Socratic seminar, and advisory classes at the Virtual Innovators Academy, a fully virtual NYC public high school serving students across all five boroughs. She explains that many students arrive with limited spreadsheet experience and varying levels of computer literacy, despite assumptions that younger students are automatically technologically fluent.
The workshop is designed to show how Google Sheets and NYC Open Data can be used together to teach:
Spreadsheet skills
Data literacy
Critical thinking
Quantitative reasoning
Student-driven inquiry
She explains that the class sequence begins with students examining misleading graphs and biased visualizations before moving into survey creation, spreadsheet analysis, and eventually work with NYC Open Data datasets.
Collaborative Google Sheets Exercise
Participants are invited into a shared Google Sheet modeled directly on Khanis’s classroom workflow. The session focuses on hands-on experimentation rather than lecture-style instruction.
Students and participants are asked to:
Claim workspaces in the sheet
Practice spreadsheet navigation
Experiment with formulas
Troubleshoot collaboratively
Khanis emphasizes that the goal is not simply arriving at the correct answer, but understanding how spreadsheet logic works.
She repeatedly encourages participants to:
Take risks
Experiment
Learn through mistakes
Help one another solve problems
Teaching Spreadsheet Fundamentals
The workshop covers foundational spreadsheet concepts, including:
Rows and columns
Cell references
Selecting ranges
Basic formatting
Spreadsheet tabs
Sorting
Simple formulas
Khanis notes that many students struggle with actions often assumed to be basic, especially:
Click-and-drag selection
Double-click behavior
Maintaining cell selection
This becomes part of a broader discussion about digital literacy gaps among students.
Participants discuss how many students are comfortable with phones and apps but less experienced with productivity software and structured computer workflows.
Introducing Spreadsheet Functions
Khanis frames spreadsheet formulas as a form of coding, which she says helps students engage more positively with the material.
Functions introduced include:
SUM
AVERAGE
MODE
SORT
VLOOKUP
She explains the logic behind formulas:
The equals sign begins a command
Parentheses define inputs
Functions automate repetitive calculations
Participants practice entering formulas directly into the spreadsheet and observe how results change dynamically.
The workshop repeatedly stresses that spreadsheet tools:
Reduce repetitive work
Minimize arithmetic errors
Allow users to focus on interpretation and analysis
VLOOKUP Demonstration
A major portion of the session focuses on VLOOKUP functionality.
Khanis explains the function conceptually as:
Finding a value in one location and returning related information from another column
Participants discuss:
Lookup ranges
Column indexes
Search values
Structured data organization
Brian Levine contributes clarification that the lookup value must appear in the first column of the selected lookup range.
The exercise demonstrates how spreadsheet tools can scale from small classroom exercises to much larger datasets.
Virtual Teaching Challenges
Khanis reflects on the challenges of teaching spreadsheet skills in a virtual environment:
Students switching between Zoom and Sheets
Limited screen space
Difficulty monitoring work in real time
Troubleshooting technical issues remotely
She explains that collaborative spreadsheets help because she can:
Watch formulas appear live
Identify mistakes immediately
Guide students through corrections
Participants discuss how peer support in the classroom often becomes essential for troubleshooting.
Student Engagement and Learning Outcomes
Khanis reports that spreadsheet activities generated unusually high engagement levels among students.
Examples include:
Students voluntarily staying after class
Students helping peers debug formulas
Active use of class chat for support
Increased willingness to experiment and problem-solve
She describes how students gradually developed confidence working with data and spreadsheets through repeated collaborative exercises.
The session emphasizes that spreadsheet instruction became not just technical training, but also:
Confidence-building
Collaborative learning
Inquiry-based analysis
Connecting Spreadsheet Skills to Open Data
The workshop positions NYC Open Data as the next stage of student learning.
Potential student projects include analysis of:
Lead exposure data
Special education datasets
Other public-interest datasets relevant to students’ communities
Khanis explains that students eventually move toward:
Selecting their own datasets
Conducting independent analysis
Presenting findings based on public data
The broader educational objective is helping students become active interpreters of real-world information rather than passive consumers of charts and statistics.
Audience Discussion
Audience discussion focuses on several recurring themes:
Spreadsheet literacy as a core modern skill
Challenges teaching technical concepts remotely
The role of peer learning
Assumptions about “digital natives”
The growing role of AI tools in spreadsheet work
Participants discuss whether students should first learn spreadsheet logic manually before relying on AI-assisted tools such as Gemini.
Khanis argues that conceptual understanding remains essential even when automation tools are available.
Conclusion
The session demonstrates how spreadsheet instruction can be integrated with civic and public-interest datasets to create highly interactive, inquiry-driven learning experiences.
By combining:
Google Sheets
Collaborative exercises
Student-created surveys
NYC Open Data
the workshop illustrates how students can develop both technical and analytical skills while engaging directly with real-world public data.
RESOURCES
Teaching Google Sheets Functionality to High School Students through Open Data — the NYC Open Data Week 2026 event page for this workshop
NYC Open Data — the City’s free public data portal Ethel’s students draw datasets from to choose and analyze their own projects
Children Under 6 yrs with Elevated Blood Lead Levels (BLL) — the elevated-lead dataset Ethel downloaded as a more complex analysis option for students
VLOOKUP — Google Sheets function reference — official help page for the vertical lookup function demonstrated in the workshop
XLOOKUP — Google Sheets function reference — official help page for the lookup function raised during the Q&A
Google Sheets function list — the full catalog of Sheets functions, a reference for students exploring beyond average and lookup
Learn about NYC Open Data — free virtual classes — 90-minute Open Data Ambassador classes for anyone wanting to get started with City data
NYC Open Data Week (YouTube) — channel hosting recordings of this and past Open Data Week sessions