Creating and Disseminating Tools to Teach with Demographic Data Maps and Materials

该项目结合了被称为“Social Explorer”的网络应用程序工具的多功能性，该工具被用来创建定量说明各种社会模式和人口变化的可视地图，以及在本科社会科学课程中使用该工具的基于研究的教学支持。“社会探索者”以一种易于理解的格式提供人口统计信息，其中包括：交互式专题数据地图；在更大范围内呈现某一地区数据的报告；以及显示不同地理位置(从整个国家到个别人口普查区域)和不同时间的复杂数据模式的简单工具。从1790年到现在，美国各县都有大量的数据，从1910年到现在，每十年都有人口普查区域的数据。通过创建一个动态的在线课程模块档案，其中包含了行之有效的利用地理信息系统进行教学的方法，该项目正在通过促进对了解人口分布和人口变化至关重要的关键社会科学概念和数据分析技能的教与学，加强“社会探索者”的影响。该项目还在为教师编写支持材料。它正在使用Web 2.0方法：(1)发展和支持教师用户社区；(2)在城市研究、社会学、政治学和其他本科生课程中，提供可适应的模块作为有效教学的范例；以及(3)使用课堂研究来提供策略，以支持教师将这些范例适应自己的教学，以及“开箱即用”的材料的使用。“社会探险家”在2008年制作了近300万张地图，目前正被越来越多的高校使用。

This project combines the versatility of the web application tool known as "Social Explorer," which is used to create visual maps illustrating quantitatively various social patterns and demographic change, with research-based instructional supports for using this tool in teaching undergraduate social science classes. "Social Explorer" provides demographic information in an easily understood format consisting of: interactive thematic data maps; reports that present data for an area in a larger context; and simple tools to visualize complex data patterns across geographies (from the entire nation to individual census tracts) and across time. Extensive data are available for US counties from 1790 to the present, and for census tracts for each decade from 1910 to the present. Through the creation of a dynamic online archive of curriculum modules that embody proven instructional approaches for teaching with GIS, this project is enhancing the impact of "Social Explorer" by facilitating the teaching and learning of key social science concepts and data analysis skills essential for understanding population distributions and demographic change. This project is also developing support materials for instructors. It is using Web 2.0 approaches to: (1) develop and support a community of instructor users; (2) provide adaptable modules as examples of effective teaching with "Social Explorer" in Urban Studies, Sociology, Political Science, and other undergraduate courses; and (3) use classroom studies to inform strategies for supporting instructors' adaptations of these examples to their own teaching, as well as "out of the box" use of materials. "Social Explorer" produced nearly 3 million maps in 2008, and is currently used at a growing number of colleges and universities.