Hurricanes, Beer, and Money

In this exercise we'll make 3 maps:

Hurricane Map

  1. Download the csv file containing information about Hurricane Katrina.  Open the file and view the data.
  2. Upload the data to GeoCommons.
  3. Use the latitude and longitude columns for geolocating the data.
  4. Once you provide metadata and set permissions, make a map from the data.
  5. You'll notice there's a new option on the left menu window of the map called 'Animate'.  GeoCommons recognizes a column that holds a time/datestamp and can use that field to create a time animation. 
  6. Select the timestamp field for the animation, and experiment with the animation functionality.
  7. See if you can make the size of the circle correspond to the wind speed (wd_sp). Pretty cool!
  8. Save your map.

Beer, Wine, Obesity

  1. Download the csv file containing information about wine and beer consumption and obesity per state. Open the file and view the data.
  2. Upload the data to GeoCommons.
  3. GeoCommons is pretty smart. It can use the name of the state to join the data to a state boundary file.  Choose US Boundaries-->US States.  Select the columns on which to base the match.
  4. Use what you know about GeoCommons to create a choropleth map which symbolizes beer or wine consumption (or both).
  5. Try different classification schemes as well.  Which scheme is your favorite?  Why?
  6. Save your map.

Median Income

  1. Download the csv file containing information about median income for each county in South Carolina. Open the file and view the data. 
  2. Upload the data to GeoCommons.
  3. This is pretty tricky, but see if you can join a column in the csv file to county boundaries based on a common attribute.  Use trial and error and see if you can get 46 matching attributes.
  4. Once you do, create a choropleth map which symbolizes median income (from the 2010 American Community Survey).
  5. Try different classification schemes as well.  Which scheme is your favorite?  Why?
  6. Save your map.