Lena's GeoVisMaps Blog

link:

http://urichmond.maps.arcgis.com/apps/CompareAnalysis/index.html?appid=4d9c4184c0d64bd68ac6deaebcaf2a5d

High school Dropout Rate Changes from 2006 to 2014 in Virginia by Counties

High school graduation rate is important because it measures the success of state’s primary and secondary education system. Completion of high school is the minimum level of education required by most of employers and so, high school graduates earn more in their lifetimes compared to the non-graduates. Although state does set regulations on education, the details and the quality of education system is determined and set by counties. So, it is very critical that this data of high school dropout rates is looked at the county level, so that we may know what each county is doing right and wrong.

With the data from American Community Surveys (5-year estimates) I looked at the change in rate of high school dropout between the ages (16-19) from the year 2006 to 2014. The changes might be minute, but they may be telling us multiple stories. Because I did not differentiate the data between race and sex, we may not be able to determine if the changes in rates of high school dropouts involve the reasons that involve race and sex. However, it can be inferred that because of the differences in school education systems in those counties, dropout rates increased and decreased. Some reasons for increasing dropout rates could be that more and more students are finding new ways to get secondary education through homeschooling and online classes. Some may be that poverty levels are increasing in certain areas and they have to work after quitting school.

Whatever those reasons may be, it would be interesting to research the actual reasons that contributed to the change in rates of high school dropouts in each counties of Virginia and why it never attain 100% high school graduation rate.

Scroll down for answers!

Answer Key:

No dining hall label in the legend and on the map

Scale bar – ends at an awkward number

The top of the map is cut off.

The title is misspelled.

the “You are here” is placed in the wrong place.

Lena Lee

I made a map of obesity rates(in all age groups) in the State of Virginia. The data is from CDC and is divided by counties. The darker the shade of the purple is, the more obese people there are in a county. (the data is from 2012) I did not want the map to be red because of the negative connotation it might carry regarding obesity. Each county and city is labeled because it makes it easy to see which parts of the state have obesity problems. This data is important because certain areas have the tendency to have higher percentage of the problems and by mapping it, it may show what needs to be fixed to decrease the percentage of obesity. It will also be interesting to compare which areas have obesity, asthma, diabetes, etc. and how those conditions and diseases are related to the rate of poverty in the area. It is said that they are related because the poor neighborhood areas tend to have higher rates of those conditions listed above.

For my project, I am planning to map the number of people who are under age 21 who have Asthma in New York. My thesis is that the city with higher concentration of people who have asthma has higher rate of poverty rate than the other cities that don’t have a high concentration of people with asthma. I came up with the idea after reading an article called the “Ghetto Miasma” last semester when I was in Introduction in Healthcare Studies. It says that poor cities and towns tend to have higher rates of asthma, diabetes, and obesity in children because the towns and cities are often dangerous for children to play outside, which leads to obesity. And because houses in those neighborhoods are not environmentally safe, kids develop asthma. (their parents won’t let them play outside because of danger, so more kids will get asthma) Diabetes happen because parents cannot feed their children healthful foods – these neighborhoods only have unhealthful foods such as fast foods and not a lot of healthful alternatives. But since asthma is caused directly by the poor conditions of homes, I decided to narrow the condition list to the number of children (under age 21) who have asthma. (The most recent data)

I was genuinely surprised to read about just how important maps were. I thought only about the information it gave to people who wanted to go to places, not about how the presentation of maps could make or break political, cultural, economical deals between nations. Still, I find it hard to believe that maps are so much more powerful than I assumed. The audience who will be looking at the map and the background of the audience (ex. Nationality, ethnicity, gender, age, etc.) should definitely change the way a map is drawn and presented. The example that surprised me the most was how the use of color red might change the way a certain group of people viewed the map. Red has connotation of danger, blood and aggression. I just thought that mapmakers would pick out a random color scheme and that it wouldn’t matter at all. But this article showed that littlest details could make the difference between peace-making agreement and war.

Map 1

PolicyMap

Map 2

PolicyMap

My name is Lena Lee and I am a sophomore. I live in Burke, VA and I originally came from South Korea 9 years ago. I am going to major in healthcare studies and I just decided on it last semester. In high school, I enjoyed taking psychology, environmental science and English. But studying maps is something I have never done before. I also had the opportunity to teach the elderly how to use smartphones, (including the GPS system) and computers at a retirement home for 2 years. My worst subject is history, because no matter how hard I tried or try, I cannot get that perfect A. My least favorite subject was math, even though I was not so horrible in it, because I had an awful math teacher in 9^th grade and she ruined the subject for me.

A little bit about myself: I am an introvert and talking to people takes a lot out of me and I have to rest alone in my bed to regain my strength. I like watching shows, listening to music, knitting, going on long drives, and I LOVE sleeping. When I forget to do my homework or am late to class, I might have little panic attacks here and there and I almost always dream about being late to class or forgetting my homework on Mondays. I hate getting ready in the morning or going to class on Fridays, but I still love being a college student and having a flexible schedule without being told what to do all the time. From now, I want to volunteer at a retirement home again and I also want to help high school students who don’t have the means to go to SAT/Act prep classes to do well on their tests.

Back to the course: I have almost always skipped maps in textbooks and did not care very much before coming to college, But taking classes in college requires a lot of map reading and I want to know more, and plus, this class counts for one of the classes that I could take in my major. Maps of people’s background, health problems, teenage pregnancies, etc. came up very often in healthcare studies class and it made me very curious. What I hope to get out of this class is just to have a better idea of how to make maps and where to get the information to make them. I think that this class will help me a lot if I were to get a job later on in my life after graduating or doing any research projects. I hope this class can make me appreciate maps more when I am reading any kind of articles or watching any presentations. I may get lost often in class, but I will give it my best!