I’ve just discovered the UN Stat Planet interactive map. It’s Flash-based so isn’t an option for iOS devices, but in all other respects is a superb classroom resource for visualising development data. The Indices and Data page on the UNDP site is a good place for students to start their research.
I re-discovered the excellent Guardian Datablog during the reporting of the summer riots. I was particularly interested in the correlation between the addresses of rioters and poverty as measured by the IMD.
The Indices of Deprivation attempt to measure a broad concept of ‘multiple deprivation’, made up of several distinct dimensions, or domains, of deprivation. The data is based on 38 separate indicators across seven domains: Income, Employment, Health and Disability, Education Skills and Training, Barriers to Housing and Other Services, Crime and Living Environment. source
In terms of classroom practicalities, the most convenient way of accessing the data seems to be to follow the link to the data source Click on Visualize and Map to view in full screen. It should be possible to use the data in Google Earth. There is a KML network link but I haven’t been able to make it work yet. Has anyone been successful?
From one of my favourite blogs, information aesthetics comes news of iCharts
The site, described as a kind of “You Tube for interactive charts” encourages the sharing and embedding of charts, together with user comments. The embed versions are too wide to fit onto this page but here’s a couple of screen shots:
There’s a lot of really useful data on the site already – a good resource for KS4 and A level teaching.