Where is that book?
Oakfield School Library is made up. It has 4,000 books and 600 members. A student asks: "Do you have a book about space?"
The librarian could walk the shelves for an hour. Or she could type one word and get the answer in a second. A database (an organised collection of data) makes the second way possible.
By the end of this lesson
Note
I can say what a database is and give three jobs it does for an organisation.
Key words
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Database | an organised collection of data |
| Table | a grid that holds the data about one kind of thing |
| Record | one row in a table, about one item |
| Field | one column in a table, one fact about each item |
| Query | a question you ask a database |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Starter: what you already know
Have a go
Starter: what you already know
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
A database is organised data
A database is an organised collection of data. It keeps data in tables. A table is a grid about one kind of thing, such as books.
Each row is a record. One record is one book. Each column is a field. One field is one fact about every book, such as the title.
Worked example: a books table
| book_id | title | author | genre | copies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stars and Planets | Ana Silva | Science | 3 |
| 2 | The Lost Bridge | Tom Ward | Fiction | 5 |
| 3 | How Engines Work | Ana Silva | Science | 2 |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Check
Have a go
Check
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.