Lab Week 1

Map #1

 

Source Site URL: http://honolulunotes.com/2011/01/page/5/

Image URL: http://honolulunotes.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/us-of-awesome-sized.jpg 

        Beginning with the title, "The United States of Awesome," I found multiple interesting aspects within this first map. The source of this map is this website entitled honolulunotes.com, which apparently is a type of blog that records facts about Honolulu, Hawaii. I came across this map after looking up "interesting maps" on Google Images, and again, the title is what struck me. This map describes what each state in America is best at. It has a plethora of colors, and the creator of the map made sure that no adjacent states were in the same color to make sure that one could tell the difference between state to state. What I found interesting about this map is that it highlights random facts that I did not know about each American state. Some of them are quite serious, like "Affordable In-State Tuition" in Florida and "Least Violent Crimes" in Maine. Others are hilarious, such as "Most Breastfed Babies" in Oregon and "Most Liberalized Prostitution Levels" in Nevada. I was actually quite surprised to learn that California, my home state, is the "Safest for Workers." In conclusion, I think this map is quite versatile, as it could be used to discover serious information (like where people get the highest income), or it could be used for entertainment to just learn random facts about what each state of America is best at.

Map #2

Source Site URL: http://io9.com/5923723/tweets-of-the-words-beer-and-church-by-us-county

Image URL:  http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17rzhch8rgfg0jpg/original.jpg

        This second map does not have an official title, but it indicates data collected from tweets that include the words "beer" and "church" and separates them by U.S. county. The source is from a website titled i09.com. Because sociology is my declared major here at UCLA, I decided to search "sociology maps" in Google Images and I came across this map. At first sight on the image results, I thought the visual of the map was interesting because I saw the sections and colors get smaller and smaller as you cross the country from west to east. After clicking on the map, I found it quite funny that this map records "beer" and "church" tweets. It takes data on weekend tweets by each county that include those two specific words, to show which of the two one's specific county holds most important. It has a pretty simple key that differentiates and gives meaning to the colors within the map. Other things I found interesting about the map, other than the whole hilarious premise of the map itself, is that it separates data by U.S. counties instead of just by state. It makes the data more specific to readers. I also found it interesting that some parts of the country are not colored in and did not have any data, indicating that twitter use is probably not as popular in those regions. In conclusion, I feel like this map would be more used for entertainment among readers as it is definitely quite amusing.

Map #3

Source Site URL: http://iws.punahou.edu/user/JStevens/project/standard_of_living/

Image URL: http://iws.punahou.edu/user/JStevens/project/poverty%20map.bmp

        For the final map, I chose to look for one that included global data. This map records levels of poverty in today's world and is from a source that seems to be on a specific school's database as part of a student project. To describe this map, it seems to be organized by country and uses a scale of different colors that specify poverty levels of each country. The data is based on GNP per capita and other various poverty indicators. I found this map to be interesting because I feel that it does relate to my sociology major, as it incorporates data from across the globe about different societies and groups of people. I also thought it was interesting that you can see how places like the United States are not even colored in, showing how severe poverty is in other countries and how people in first world countries might take where they live for granted. This map is quite useful in many different ways. From a humbling standpoint, it expresses the enormity of the problem of poverty and asks the question, "what can we do to help?" It also provides a view into the lives of other people in places across the world, not just where one lives.  In conclusion, maps such as these should be more prominent as its data and findings could certainly bring about change that is desperately needed.