Lesson: Geography Without Maps
After looking at a variety of mapping concepts, you’re now set up to analyze and make a variety of maps. But should you? Maps can be great, but there are also times when a different data visualization type can be more effective.
Follow along with the slides here: Geography Without Maps
Video not showing up? Watch on YouTube here.
Some of the examples briefly displayed in the lecture will come up again, so keep an eye out for geographic data that isn’t mapped!
Readings
• When Maps Shouldn’t Be Maps
• Election maps are telling you big lies about small things (PDF version)
Discussion
We’re going to take on a heavier topic today. Mass shootings are unfortunately a pretty common news story. Because each one is a location-based event, there are a number of news maps related to this topic. The data is actually somewhat complicated, since there are varying definitions of what “mass shooting” really means. (This Washington Post explainer illustrates some different ways of counting.) Explore these examples — some maps, some not — for discussion:
- Esri school shooting map
- The Trace gun violence map
- Vox mass shootings interactive
- Washington Post mass shooting interactive
Mapping Mass Shootings: After looking through the listed examples, answer the following questions:
- Which example do you think is most effective and why? (Consider the data, visual styles, interactivity, etc.)
- Do you think a map is an effective way to help people understand mass shootings?
- Thinking about news coverage about mass shootings, what do you think data visualizations do well or poorly compared to other types of media, like photos, text and video coverage?
Assignment 16: Choropleth Maps in Tableau
This week has one longer assignments rather than two separate assignments. However, it’s still split into two parts to make it easier to split up the work throughout the week. Part 1 involves working with data and adjusting for population size, and Part 2 involves making a choropleth map and bar chart.