Part II - GEOGRAPHY of
INTRODUCTION to Data Data Data... how to find evidence for explorations of social and behavioral science issues ... Utah's human geography...
Note: Zick and Smith (2006) "Utah at the beginning of the new millennium" presents and explores issues and themes and census data of 2000. Various contributors to that volume explore diverse issues of social and behavioral sciences that as topical today (2012) as in 2000... but enought has changed that the snapshot of 2000 does not fully capture the snapshot of census 2010, or Utahns in 2012. If you have a particular intereest in an issue such as... child welfare... or trends of migration... Utah at the beginning of the New Millenium is a great resource for context, even if its data are dated.
So... how do you find data that is fresh, relevant and of interest to you? That is the topic of this chapter... and
WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOW INCLUDES: The 15 Words of GEOG3600 LINK to annotated version. In PART II of the course we explore social and behavioral issues.
Some course logistics… CONGRATULATIONS… we’re 1/3 through
the course.
Part I: The Five Great Themes of geography
Part II: Utah's Human Geography... explorations of issues of social and behavioral
sciences (a) via the web text of these chapters AND iTunesU podcasts of five guest speakers... Aaron Phipps of Utah's Office of Planning and Budgetpresenting his explorations of data for Utah State Goverment; Dr Pamela Perlich on
Part III: Utah's Physical Geography... the five subsystems of Earth systems... and webs of relationships to Utah's human geography.
Overview of the module - DEMOGRAPHICS and
Geography of
By the end of this Learning Module, you should:
·
Understand what’s expected in Part III of the course.
·
Be able to articulate what is shown on “thematic” maps
·
Be ready to find and explore demographic data for
So What? If you can’t interpret maps, you’re
handicapped when facing today’s societal problems. Spatial literacy is a
necessary skill for coping with global challenges.
Maps are to geographers as legal briefs are to
attorneys or scores showing music are to musicians. Skills of a geographer
include being able to translate what is shown on a map into verbiage that
non-geographers can understand.
Thought questions – How divisive is the classification
of physical versus human geography? Is the split essential, important,
conducive to collaboration…?
Quick review of some essential concepts... – the seven departments in the UofU College of Social and
Behavioral sciences
What’s special about Geography? It’s spatial.
Visualization – how one portrays information visually…
GIS = spells J O B = Geographic Information Systems. (Not to be
confused with GIScience… both are strengths of UofU Dept of Geography).
GIS is a toolbox for visualizing spatial data.
Powerful tool… strengths and, of course can be misused
– issues of scale, inaccuracies.
DEMOGRAPHICS – a way to approach human geography.
From Wikipedia: Demographics or demographic
data are the characteristics of a human population. These types of
data are used widely in sociology,
public policy, and marketing. Commonly used
demographics include gender, race, age, income,
disabilities, mobility (in terms of travel time to work or number of vehicles
available), educational attainment, home ownership, employment status, and even
location. Demographic trends describe the changes in demographics in a
population over time (for example, the average age of a population may increase
or decrease over time). Both distributions and trends of values within a
demographic variable are of interest.
From Merriam-Webster on line: 1: pluralthe
statistical characteristics of human populations (as age or income) used
especially to identify markets
2: a
market or segment of the population identified by demographics
Demographics… the root of the word… democracy ---
people; and graphics… display.
So what: We’ve explored issues of social and
behavioral science every lecture. Now we focus on those issues. Remember…
GEOG3600-Geography of
You probably know that demo- suggests "people" and -graphic suggests "write," so it remains only to say that demographic is not about people writing, but writing about people; specifically, statistics about them. The adjective ("relating to demography") is a late 19th century coinage. The noun did not emerge till the mid 20th century.
BIG CONCEPT:
How to interpret (a) reference maps; and (b)
thematic maps
WAYS GEOGRAPHERS PRESENT INFORMATION: LINK to http://hosting.soonet.ca/eliris/remotesensing/bl130lec7.html
We’ll walk through each of these types of maps.
EXAMPLE: Demographic trends for populous counties. How to convey
differences over a large range of absolute numbers. Normalizing data gives them
a common denominator so that rates of change can be visualized per 1000
population or per square mile area.
Quantile maps of counties show the relative ranking of counties with
respect to a demographic trend.
Classifications of choropleth maps are generally by quantile; by equal
interval; or by logical/natural breaks.
Color conveys meaning. Color ramps, for example from cool colors to
warm colors convey gradational trends.
BIG CONCEPT - SKILL-- Population pyramids – how to read them
POPULATION PYRAMIDS
http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa071497.htm age-sex
pyramids
BIG CONCEPT... Tutorial for Census Data… how to make a map;
Danger danger… it’s easy to
drown in data; to not see forests because of all the needles, to not think
geographic thoughts. That’s why Dr Perlich’s lecture (TunesU) inspires … because
it shows how economics and demographics can help us understand past, present,
and future demographics.
Doorway into recent Census data: AMERICAN
FACTFINDER for USCensus Bureau information Introduction http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/aff2.html
ROAM the Census data
Enormous quantities of info on the web
and in the census. For example… if you live in SLCounty and want to know the
demographics of your census tract for year 2000, here are Census 2000 neighborhood profiles Dr Perlich developed for
For basics of
census geography (what is a tract???) See page 25 of this document: http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/glossry2.pdf
The larger set of resources is here: http://factfinder2.census.gov (formerly:
http://www.census.gov/geo/www/reference.html
Here is the census tract locator tool
(type in address and get the tract): http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/AGSGeoAddressServlet?_lang=en&_programYear=50&_treeId=420
MORE SOURCES of demographic data for your atlas
You may use whatever sources you like.
The more you share information sources, the better for
cohort coachings.
Those students who know GIS… go for it!
ESRI has remarkable sites that show why this
information is useful – for example:
http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/spring09articles/trust-for-public-land.html
Here are some leads… most of them “friendly” WEB SITES-
For example.. county/Uintah-Utah.aspx# Just
copy/paste and then above the chart … Overview… even some info on sociology /
religion / schools
Here’s another based on zip code:
GREAT SITE for UTAH: http://www.utah.gov/about/demographics.html
Population pyramid for
UTah health stats-IBIS
Census tracts --Urban versus
Rural discussion;
Census data -- http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/
Graphs – rate of change for multiple
attributes; Bar charts - for single attributes
Maps -- thematic maps http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/thematic.html
BIG CONCEPT:
Critical Thinking...
Purpose of the next sets of homework…
EXPLORE issues of human geography at two scales…
(b) at local scale (your school or city or county)
Think about how
Think about how
Think… why. The 15 words of GEOG3600...
BIG CONCEPT: Respect
Don't hang back with your thoughts BUT
BIG CAVEAT -- what is respect? Why is respect an issume in GEOG3600-Geography
of
Issues of exploration http://www.humis.utah.edu/humis/docs/organization_269_1234544107.pdf
BIG CONCEPT: So What? Demography is Destiny.. they say... see next chapter... and it links to all 15Themes of Geography of Utah
Know where you are… know who you are… know where you
are … know who you are… know who they were … know where you are… know who’ll
they’ll be… know who you may be associating with … know where you’ll be… perhaps.
