Category: DataViz Team 2014

Assignment 2b: Description of Park Watershed Organization

Posted on Author Shaina Lo

This semester I will be partnering up with The Park River Watershed in Hartford, Connecticut. Mary Pelletier who runs the non-profit organization describes this program as a “start up” willing to explore many and any environmental issues related to the watershed. Their goals include involving the greater community to participate in a growing a network that includes teachers, artists students, etc. They want many of the citizens to be involved with their initiatives as it involves a whole community to create a positive resource for all.

I have not yet decided what specific data I would like to use for this project as Mary and I are still working out logistics as to what is more important to show and produce for the public. We would like to use data that the general public. Right now, I just placed sample data into my Batch Geo. Hopefully, when I get real data my map will look a bit more interesting and interactive.

View Sample map in a full screen map

Assignment 2b Great by 8

Posted on Author Katie Hawkins

For the beginning of this semester I will be working with West Hartford Great by 8.
Great by 8 is an early childhood education and health community organization that focuses on bridging the gap between those that have access to preschool programs and those who do not have the opportunity. Great by 8 aims to address two priorities: 1. Eager and Ready to Learn in order to provide access to preschools and 2. Physically and Emotionally Health to improve children’s overall health and wellbeing.

I have not been able to meet with my partner and thus do not know exactly what their main data visualization goal is. However, I created a map in class and so will embed it here in place of what my organization will want later as I have a meeting set up on Monday 10th.

View Sample bad map in a full screen map

Partnering with Achieve Hartford

Posted on Author Marissa Block

Throughout the course of the semester, I will be partnering with the organization Achieve Hartford, a nonprofit education advocacy group. Fortunately, I had some exposure to this organization last semester through the Community Learning Initiative, in which I co-authored a study on the characteristics of students in the Hartford Public School (HPS) system. This past experience helped fuel my interest to work more closely with Achieve Hartford, and learn the art of data visualization in the process.

Through research, publications, and community forums, Achieve Hartford raises awareness about the state of education reform in Hartford and hopes to facilitate the engagement of parents, businesses, and community and school leaders in the process. For my role, the research and publications will be the most relevant aspect of their work. Their research is conducted in an independent and credible manner, in order to raise awareness about facts and issues affecting the HPS system. Achieve Hartford’s primary goal in terms of data visualization is to optimize their presentation of the most interesting and meaningful data by highlighting its worth through visualizations and thus making it more accessible to parents, rather than reading through an entire report.

Though I am still in the very early stages of expanding my knowledge of data visualization tools, I am certain that interactive charts  and tables will be beneficial in helping to consolidate data from several reports, possibly with achievement data of test scores. Additionally, geographical visualizations of relevant indicators will also be useful to identify any possible trends. Something as simple as an interactive map that shows the spatial distribution of Hartford schools across the four school zones in Hartford might help parents make more informed decisions about school choice.

I look forward to working with Achieve Hartford this semester and I hope to create data visualizations that will positively complement their work.

 

View Distribution of School Types in HPS in a full screen map

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Assignment 2B

Posted on Author Raymond Li

This semester, I am interning at the Injury Prevention Center at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. The IPC is focused on educating and creating programs that will help reduce unintentional injury and violence among children, teenagers, and adults. Recently, injury prevention has gained attention within the field of public health due to the staggering amounts of injuries that happen each year. Many people believe that injuries are due to “accidents” or based on the individuals own fault, however there are many factors that can increase the risk for injury such as the environment. It is the IPC’s goal to raise awareness about injury prevention so that action can be taken to reduce these unnecessary injuries.

At the IPC, I will be helping the center by creating data visualizations based off of recent studies that have been completed. Although the research has been published, to the public’s view, the data that is presented is difficult to understand for many. Therefore, my job will be to translate the data sets that are given to me, analyze them and create visualizations that will be put up on the IPC’s website so that the public will be able to see and comprehend the work that the IPC has done. I will be working closely with Garry Lapidus, who is the director of the IPC, as well as other employees at this organization. I will also be interviewing patients, families, doctors, and other hospital personnel about injury and injury prevention that will also be put up on the website to give the data a story as well as visuals.

For the tools that I will need, it will be extremely important that I use different mapping tools, spreadsheets, as well as interactive charts and graphs that are user-friendly. Furthermore, HTML tools will be very helpful as well to put the visualization on the IPC’s website. So far I am in the preliminary stages of analysis and will hopefully be producing visualizations soon.

View Types of Schools in the Hartford Area in a full screen map