[teyc]

Here's an anectode in support of Excel. My 12 y.o. son was doing a project on seasons and climates, and he asked me whether it rains more in cold weather. And he gave me a certain line of reasoning.

Since real teaching moments can be hard to come by, I suggested we not stop there, but look at the data. Climate information is readily available on the internet, and we used Excel to plot out whether there were correlations.

Excel on its own has little value, but as a tool, it can make analysis painless and encourage people to form hypothesis and check them out quickly.