Due: Wednesday, October 16, 2024 by 11:59pm
(different deadline due to Fall Break)
The goal of this assignment is to propose and implement charts based on questions/tasks asked about real-world data. You will be demonstrating that you can choose and implement charts using appropriate idioms for the data and task, incorporating chart design principles that we have covered.
Read through the entire assignment before starting.
Choose one of the following datasets. You must address both questions about your chosen dataset, using a separate chart for each question.
All of the datasets for this assignment come from Section 6. Geography and Environment from the 2010 Statistical Abstract of the United States (this is different than your HW3 data, which came from the 2012 version).
In addition to looking at the Excel spreadsheets for the tables listed below, you should also view the Section 6 PDF for more information about the data.
Table 346 - Land and Water Area Of States and Other Entities: 2008
Q1: For each state, show the relationship between the state's land area and its total water area. Consider only the 50 US states (Alabama - Wyoming), ignore DC and the territories. Highlight any interesting outliers.
Q2: Pick 10 states and compare the proportion of their total area that is land and the proportion that is water. You may pick the 10 states however you wish (e.g., 10 largest, 10 smallest, 10 largest based on land area, 10 largest based on water area, 10 favorite states), but you must discuss how you chose the states.
Extra Credit [2 points]: Combine this table with Table 12 (Resident Population, from Section 1 - Population) to show the relationship between land area and 2008 population for each state.
Table 358. U.S. Water Withdrawals Per Day by End Use
Q1: Show how the amount of water withdrawals attributed to the public supply has changed over time.
Q2: Which of the end uses has contributed the most to the growth over time?
Extra Credit [2 points]: Combine this table with Table 354 (Land Cover/Use by Type) to show the relationship between the change in area of cropland and pastureland to rural water withdrawal (domestic and livestock).
Table 379. Highest Temperature of Record - Selected Cities
Q1: Choose 5 cities and compare their record highs in each month. You may pick the 5 cities however you wish, but you must discuss how you chose the cities.
Q2: Using the data from all of the cities, which month most often has the highest high? (Hint: For each month, show the number of times it had the highest high for a city.)
Extra Credit [2 points]: Combine this table with Table 380 (Lowest Temperature of Record) to show the relationship between each city's annual highest high and annual lowest low.
For your chosen dataset, create a chart to answer each of the questions provided. You will be creating two separate charts.
As you work through this, pay attention to detail and the visualization principles we have discussed in class when designing your charts. Charts must have appropriately labeled axes and appropriate unit formats. In your report (see below), you will describe the design decisions you have made, so take notes along the way as you work through your design process.
You may use whatever tool(s) you wish to manipulate the data and create the charts. Remember that CS students must use Python or Vega-Lite to create the charts in at least two HW assignments.
Additional Extra Credit [5 points]: Complete the full assignment with one of the other datasets (excluding the extra credit portion). You must include a similar writeup for your extra credit charts as for the main assignment.
All extra credit opportunities are "all or nothing". You either get the full points or 0 points, no partial extra credit is given.
Your GitHub repo should contain any files you used to create the charts. This includes smaller datafiles, Excel spreadsheets, Tableau workbooks, Python ipynb notebooks, Python source code, etc. Your repo should also contain images of the created charts so they can be included in your report.
Your report is an important part of this assignment. It should be written as a narrative and not just a set of bullet points. Your report should include your name, CS625-HW4, date, and appropriate headings and Markdown markup for clarity and neatness. You will lose points if there are many spelling or grammatical errors.
Create a section for each question (including extra credit) that you are addressing. Each section must include the following information:
- question you're addressing
- appropriately-sized image of the chart
- link to the chart
- Excel, Tableau - link to your spreadsheet/workbook in your GitHub repo
- Vega-Lite - provide a link to your notebook (see "Note about Using Observable" for sharing instructions)
- Seaborn in Google Colab - provide a link to your notebook (make sure to share with GTA and instructor) or link to your ipynb file in your GitHub repo
- Seaborn locally - link to your Python code in your GitHub repo
- other tools - ask if you have questions about what should be submitted
- idiom/mark/data/encode table (see markdown code for an example)
- explanation of how the idiom used in your chart is appropriate for your datasets and question/task
- discussion of any insights gained about the data from your chart
- discussion of any design decisions you made
- discussion of any special customizations you used
After addressing the assigned questions/tasks, include the following sections in your report:
- Further Questions - What further questions does your exploration of the dataset prompt? What hypotheses do you have about what the answers might be? Are there other tables that might help you address these questions?
- References - This is where you list any resources you consulted. It is not acceptable to leave this part blank. It is OK, and even expected, that you to refer to some code examples, but they must be documented here.
You should be working in the private GitHub repo that was created for you in the odu-cs625-datavis organization. If you are working locally, make sure that you have committed and pushed your local repo, including any images you reference, to GitHub.
Submit the URL of your report (not the URL of your repo) in Canvas under HW4. This should be something like
https://github.com/odu-cs625-datavis/fall24-mcw-username/blob/main/HW4-report.md
If you make changes to your report after submitting in Canvas, we will use the last commit time in your repo as your assignment submission time.
Example idiom/mark/data/encode table
Idiom: Grouped Bar Chart / Mark: Line
| Data: Attribute | Data: Attribute Type | Encode: Channel |
|---|---|---|
| year | key, ordered | outer horizontal spatial region (x-axis) |
| unemployment rate | value, quantitative | vertical position on a common scale (x-axis) |
| race | categorical | inner horizontal spatial region |
| race | categorical | color hue |
Markdown code:
Idiom: Grouped Bar Chart / Mark: Line
| Data: Attribute | Data: Attribute Type | Encode: Channel |
| --- |---| --- |
| year | key, ordered | outer horizontal spatial region (x-axis) |
| unemployment rate | value, quantitative | vertical position on a common scale (x-axis) |
| race | categorical | inner horizontal spatial region |
| race | categorical | color hue |
Once you've been added to the @oducs-vis Observable Team, you can create private notebooks that you can use for your homework assignments.
To create a new private notebook:
- start at https://observablehq.com/@oducs-vis
- click New
- make sure Workspace is set to "ODUCS Vis" and Visibility is set to "Only You"
- click Create Notebook
To share with your instructor and GTA (for help or for grading):
- click Share
- in the Search for a teammate box, enter navya-teja-ogirala, weiglemc so that both Navya (GTA) and Dr. Weigle can access it
- choose "Can Edit"
- click Add
- click Save