What do John Hopkins, The New York Times, and this Story Map have in common? They tell great stories, provide useful information, and give a wide range of people insight into one of the greatest problems of the our time the Covid-19 Pandemic.
While you cant create any of the maps highlighted above (Yet) you can use the Covid data to create your own series of maps.
Covid-19 Data is avaliable in Social Explorer for 2020 and 2021
There are lots of interesting categories and they are somewhat clumsily organized by day (what were the developers thinking? What were their limitations?)
You should compare at least 3 days throughout the year for atleast 3 categories (9 maps total)
Pick a scale to work at for most of the variables you can use state, county, or MSA. Pick one scale and stick to it.
If you pick county, you will probably wonly want to stick to one state (or the tri-state area)
If you pick MSA (metropolitan statistical area) stick with a region like the Northeast.
States should be done for the entire U.S.
Essentially we are picking one geographic unit, 3 indicators, and 3 different times.
Put it all together and create a story about Covid-19. I would like you to tell this story as a recorded zoom session in PowerPoint. Your presentation should be about 5-10 minutes and it will cover the following issues?
Present all of your maps AND
a) Which map styles (bubbles, shaded area, dot density) did you use and why?
b) What dates did you choose for your longitudinal study?
c) Explain what each of the 3 categories you chose means? (literally, what are they measuring)
d) Tell a story about your maps what patterns do you see? How are things changing over time? Over space?
e) What do you think the weaknesses of your maps are? How do MAUP and ecological fallacy limit your conclusions?