Childhood Poverty in Rhode Island
Using the data provided on this page make a map that shows the percent of children under 5 living in poverty in Rhode Island at the census tract level. The map should emphasize those places that have high childhood poverty rates.
- You should include a basemap the shows the surrounding states and their coastlines.
- You choose the symbology and decide the best way to present the data.
- The reader should be able to tell which towns contained highest poverty rates.
- You may use auxiliary tables, charts, or text if you think they will help you case.
- The title of the map is “Childhood Poverty in Rhode Island”
- The map should be designed to be printed on an 11×17 piece of paper.
The data archive includes an excel file called “dt_dec_2000_sf3_u_data1.xls” (I kept the title provided by the Census Bureau Website). The Excel file includes a column POV_U5 that tells you the number of children under 5 in each tract that meets the census bureaus definition of poverty (see table on page 5 of the report). Each child under 5 is classified as either in poverty or not in poverty. The column NO_POV_U5 includes the number of children under 5 who do not meet the definition of poverty.
Your first task is to add a column to the excel table that contains the percent of all children under 5 that are in poverty in each census tract. You have all the data necessary to do this, calculate this new column using a an excel formula.
I gathered the shapefiles for this exercise from the internet. I have not modified the files, they may be missing projection information and/or metadata. You will have to figure out how to get the data align properly.
This is a team exercise, groups will be assigned in class. You must submit a PDF file, the procedure is similar to creating a jpeg file (just choose pdf instead of jpeg).