Graphing Exponential Functions using Excel
Step One
Open Excel.
Open a New Document.
Your screen should appear: 
Step Two
In column A type the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
In column B type the numbers 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024

NOTE: This is a good place to remind students that the numbers in Column A are values for x and the numbers in Column B are values for f(x). In this example f(x) = 2x or f(x) = 2^x. The numbers in Column A and the numbers in Column B can be changed to fit whatever exponential function your students are investigating.
Step Three
Starting in cell A1 select all the cells that have numbers so that they are highlighted.

Step Four
Go to INSERT and select CHART… 
A Chart Wizard window will appear.
Select XY (Scatter) as the type of graph you wish to use and then select the second sub-type on the right side of the window, Click Next.

Step Five
Step 2 in the Chart Wizard should remain the same, so click Next to move on to Step 3.
In Step 3, give your chart a title. The title in the example below is: Exponential Function. 
Axes can also be labeled in this window, if the graph requires it. 
The legend feature can be turned off from the tabbed section of the window titled “Legend”. Just remove the tick mark from the box labeled “Show Legend” if you wish to remove it.
Step Six
The final part of the Chart Wizard gives you the option to put your chart in a new sheet of the document, or add it to the same sheet beside the data. Usually, the second option is the best choice, so the data and the chart can be seen at once. Select Finish to create your chart.

Step Seven
Your graph will appear on the screen.

You can change the maximum and minimum values for each axis by double-clicking on the numbers of the appropriate axis. 
Clicking on other areas of the chart will give you other options for customizing the appearance of the chart.
Students should then:
Copy their graph.
Open a new Word document.
Paste the graph.
Write a description of what they did and what the graph represents.

Example of student work

Student Name
Date
Period 

Graphing the Function f(x) = 2^x

I plotted 10 different points that satisfied the equation  starting with 1 as the value of x. 
The curved line would cross the x-axis at the point (0, 1) but this curved line segment does not show that because the first value of x that I plotted was 1. The curved line would not cross the y-axis because 2 to the power of 0 is 1 and you cannot get a value of 0 for y using this equation. You could see this better if the scale on the y-axis were smaller. I used a scale of 100 and this makes the beginning part of the line segment really hard see. Maybe I could choose a different scale next time.
The values for f(x) start off increasing slowly but get large quite quickly.