Analyzing Populations with Maps (College Level)

Robert R. Downs, rdowns@ciesin.columbia.edu, Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University, Author.

Starting Point materials: Brian Welch, St. Olaf College

This material is replicated on a number of sites as part of the SERC Pedagogic Service Project

Summary

This example contains general tips to adapt an existing chapter in the Earth Exploration Toolbook to the college level. Users use GIS tools to describe and compare the geographical and socioeconomic characteristics of selected regions within the United States. They find regions on a map and states within each region. They analyze the data of states and counties for variables that describe population and produce color-coded maps that demonstrate the results of the analyses.

Learning Goals

After completing this chapter, users will be able to:

identify and locate regions of the United States and Mexico
describe geographical aspects of regions in the United States and Mexico
identify and locate states within two regions of the United States
analyze population characteristics for regions, states, and counties
compare and describe differences in population characteristics between regions of the United States.

Context for Use

Within the geosciences, this example is appropriate for global change or environmental science courses that are discussing the impact of population on environment. There are obvious applications to courses outside geoscience (e.g. political science, economics, etc.).

The exercise provides an opportunity for students to work with GIS data and software. In the context of a general education course, working with population data may be more intuitive to non-science students than geological data as a way to introduce GIS and mapping concepts.

This exercise could follow the EET instructions as a classroom exercise, or be used in a lab or take-home assignment. Time requirements will depend on whether the students have to download and install the software and data, but a few hours will be necessary for them to become familiar with the data, software, and plotting methods.

Teaching Materials

The original chapter, Analyzing Populations with Maps, of the Earth Exploration Toolbook provides comprehensive descriptions of the data, software, and methods used in the exercise.

The chapter has a page, "Going Further," that described additional data sources and ideas for further study of the data.

Teaching Notes and Tips

The original exercise in the Earth Exploration Toolbook is written as a high school in-class exercise with significant instructor supervision. College-level students should be able to use the step-by-step instructions to complete the exercise on their own as a lab or take-home assignment.

The GIS population data viewer used by the exercise is a Java program that runs in a separate browser window. It should run for all browsers that are Java-enabled. The home page for the program and its tutorial report that there may be problems with firewalls. Contact your I.T. office if you encounter problems.

Some students may be intimidated by the multiple steps required to create maps in the viewer. They should be able to follow the step-by-step instructions of the example. As with all software, minor changes to the code or user interface may outdate some of the instructions in the exercise. An online tutorial is provided by the software developers.

As noted in the "Going Further" page of the EET chapter, the statistics data can be pasted into a spreadsheet program (e.g. Excel) for further analysis. These new analyses cannot be returned to the DDViewer program to create new maps.

While the data files used in the DDViewer cannot be downloaded from the program, some of the data is available for free The Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (more info) at the Minnesota Population Center at the Univ. of MN provides sample extracts of data used in the DDViewer. These can be downloaded and imported into stand-alone GIS software such as ArcView or ArcVoyager SE. Further data can be found at the U.S. Census Bureau.

Assessment

Report of the analysis including maps and interpretations. Assessment can be based on the accuracy of the results and interpretation and how well the students have mastered the processing and mapping methods. Cartographic concepts can be introduced to make a proper map (scale information, location (lat/lon), orientation, etc.).