Online Mapping Tools

For this exercise, we will use the "Bubbles" map feature to visualize unemployment rates and populations. The size of the bubble correlates with the number of unemployed people in each county, while the color correlates with the county unemployment rate. While the "Bubbles" map feature is especially useful in representing this kind of data, other maps may call for Social Explorer's other forms of data representation: "Shaded Area" and "Dot Density."

*Number and Rate of Unemployed by County, 2014*

1. Access the SE homepage through Penn Libraries, click on "Change Data" and then "Browse by Category."

2. Move the date slider to 2014 (the most recent year for which ACS data is currently available) and select "Unemployment" from the list of categories.
     

3. Under "ACS 2014 (5-Year Estimates)" and “Civilian Population in Labor Force 16 Years and Over" click on “Unemployed." You may have to scroll down a bit to find this particular set of data. You can also filter this set of data out by typing "Civilian Population" into the search bar.
     

4. From the legend in the upper-center of the map, click on "Show data by State," turn the automatic geography selection off, and click on the button next to "County." You can also play around with your data and see what happens if you press "Show data by State," but to move on to Step 5 leave it set to "County."

5. Select the "Bubbles" visualization tab ("Shaded Area" is the default.)

6.  Click on the bubble size tab, and click to add percentages. Move the slider from "Smaller to Bigger."

7.  Adjust the colors to your liking. (The map above uses the "Plum" color scheme.)

BONUS:  As stated at the beginning of this exercise, Social Explorer offers two other forms of data representation: "Shaded Area" and "Dot Density." Test them out on this map and see how they look and feel. Can you think of other types of data that might be better represented using "Shaded Area" or "Dot Density?" Hint: "Dot Density" tends to work better at the "County" and "Census" levels, so think small.

Below is a famous map showing the distribution of the population living in slavery at the time of the 1860 census, taken from the Library of Congress' American Memory digital collection (you can read about this map in a New York Times article). For this exercise, we will recreate this map as a slideshow from 1790 to 1860, using census data in Social Explorer.

1.  To create a set of slides, you'll need to sign up for a free Social Exporer account. You can do this by clicking on the "Sign Up" button in the upper right-hand corner of the page. Once you're logged in, click on "Create new project" and give the project a title (you can always change this later). You'll then be taken to the SE homepage. 
2. On the SE homepage, click on "Tell a Story" in the lower right-hand corner of the page. This will allow you to create a set of slides.
   
3. Give the first frame a title (let's call this exercise "Slave Status 1790-Present"). To create a map, click on "Change Data" and then "Browse by Survey."
4. Use the "Survey" drop-down list to select "Census 1790."
5. From here you can change the topic and specific variable using the drop-down menus. Under Table, select "T10: Slave Status," and then select the variable "Slave Population." You can also now filter for this term by typing "Slave" into the search bar and scrolling through the results.
   
    
6. From the legend in the upper-center of the map, click on "Show data by State," turn the automatic geography selection off, and click on the button next to "County." You can also see how this data looks by state to get a more general idea of slave populations during this period, but to move on to Step 6 make sure you leave the data at county level.

   

    

7.  Change the colors to your liking.
8. Click on the "Save" button in the upper left-hand corner of the page, then click on the plus sign to add another map. Note that you must add a title to your map here (if you didn't before) when saving.
   
9. Repeat steps 3-7 for Census 1800-1860.
10. To save, click on the "Export" button next to the search box in the upper-right hand corner of the page and then select either "Image" or "PowerPoint" and "Prepare for Download."