More tools for using data

I was thinking about how I can help my students get detailed views of certain data as they collect. The first thing I thought about was mapping existing buildings such as fire stations. While Google Maps may bring up the existing fire stations in a certain area, bringing a list of locaitons and building your own map could be more interesting and valuable. While I don’t want to require students to create maps, I do want the to see that maps.google.com is not the only way to use mapping tools. I found this as one example: https://www.mapcustomizer.com/

Perhaps you have other ideas on ways students can quickly engage with the data and help the solve this problem.

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Chad,

Here are a couple of my favorite map sites that I use for my students and as a geography teacher, I love it when people bring up maps. All three can be used to have a discussion on how data is used to solve problems or how to tell a story with data. I have had my students use these sites to help identify a local problem to solve or address:

https://www.crimereports.com. Tracks all of the police interactions and crime reports made in each community. They can filter the data in multiple ways from type of crime to time of day and look for trends in criminal activity in their community. Updated as frequently as your Local Police department updates their data to the public.

Esri- Tapestry Segmentation http://www.esri.com/landing-pages/tapestry - Explore the different demographic characteristics of each community broken down into a variety of categories from Household income to college football viewership habits.

What3Words- https://map.what3words.com - The founders of the program set out to find a new way of addressing the word by giving each 3 meter by 3 meter square on the Earth a unique 3 word address. The mapping program is being integrated into autonomous driving vehicles and for drone delivery of products to your home becuase of how accurate the locations are. For reference, the Code.org address in what3words is-- farm.colleague.rear

I have more if you would like some additional suggestions.

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