A Date with Data — Issue 12
It’s Tuesday, and this your weekly date with data! Here are the stories that grabbed our attention from the past week, Oct. 15 — Oct. 21.
What happens when humans fall in love with an invasive species
Oct. 16, 2018
There’s no black and white when it comes to tackling environmental problems. What’s good for the environment isn’t always good for the economy or people’s habits, and invasive species are no exception. FiveThirtyEight ran an article last week discussing the magnitude and implications of invasive species using Minnesota’s Lake Superior — the world’s largest freshwater lake by surface — as their point of reference. Plotting multiple lines on a graph they presented the numbers and laid out the distinction between non-native and invasive species. FIVETHIRTYEIGHT
The longest Datawrapper chart you’ve ever seen
Oct. 18, 2018
Who does rule the planet? To show the dominance of plants in the world and the insignificance of humans when it comes to their carbon weight, the Australian ABC News Story Lab used a very long bar graph to represent and compare the biomass of different groups of organisms. According to the study that provided the data, which appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, humans make up just the 0.01 percent of the planet’s biomass. The author of the ABC story took this opportunity to share his chart choices, and explain why a regular bar graph didn’t work given the extreme value difference. The decision to break the bars over multiple lines not only yielded an effective visualization but also offered “a tactile sense” of the data. DATAWRAPPER
Ask the Question, Visualize the Answer
Oct. 17, 2018
In how many ways can you experience a single dataset? FlowingData used age and sex-specific population data to show us how different questions and focuses can take us down to different visualization routes. Specifically, they used a dataset from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with population estimates up to 2060 by the U.S. Census Bureau to explore different angles of the story. In 14 graphs, ranging from an impressive animated area chart to an enlightening histogram, Nathan Yau used various charts to illustrate, among other findings, how the gap between men and women populations in the US decreases over time. FLOWINGDATA
35% of girls wearing school uniform have been sexually harassed in public
Oct. 16, 2018
Full Fact, a fact-checking charity in the U.K., took it upon themselves to investigate the claim above. The media made this claim using data from a recent survey conducted on behalf of the children’s rights charity Plan International. Although it’s an accurate statement, the claim alone doesn’t paint the entire picture and fails to address an important question when it comes to data presentation: “as compared to what?”. Luckily, the same survey also asked the participating women and girls if they had experienced harassment at any time in public, regardless of when in school uniform. The data showed that actually a greater proportion of women and girls said they had experienced harassment at any time, compared to when they were in school uniform. FULL FACT
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading!
