For this graphic, I originally brainstormed about geographic locations that were pertained interest to me lately. First, I thought about my recent focus on Haiti and tried to come up with an image that would convey timely information. Nothing came to mind. So instead I progressed to thinking about Iceland, since my travels there this summer made me aware how volatile their environment is with its location poised between the two continental rifts. I looked up Iceland environment on Google News and learned about the press conference had just occurred for the article I was reading. I looked up this grassroots organizational efforts to communicate this timeframe for Icelanders to sign a petition against the construction of power lines cutting straight through the heart of this island country. Instead, Bjork and Icelandic poet, Andri Snær,proposed that a better use of this untouched wilderness than pumping the land of its productivity like every other worn out piece of land would be to preserve this area for future generations as a national park.

To communicate a visual that expressed the detrimental environmental impact of this project, I used a detailed map for reference of the Icelandic Highlands to create the base Iceland vs highlands map. I then overlaid the map I found through Gætum garðsins (or “Protect the Parks”) Facebook page onto my map. I combined the two because the map that Protect the Parks used was less detailed, and seemed to have been thrown together more quickly in means of trying to just get the information out to the public. Since I had a more time, I was able to accurately highlight the highlands in real geographic perspective. It was pretty simple to scale the Protect the Parks map outline with the outline of Iceland. Next, I traced the power lines and potential power plant construction sites onto my combined map. I had a couple of routes I could have taken with this, because I found several different maps that communicated general aerial perspectives of where development would occur on the main Protect the Parks website. However, both gave me conflicting data points for locations of proposed projects. I decided to stick with the one with the power lines and roads shown. The other one was close to accurate, but just off on each point enough to make me believe that someone with less mapping experience put together these maps. While listening to the press conference, the topic of hiring professional cartographers was discussed so I assume as time goes on, more accurate maps will be available.

I think that my map would be more useful in an article to an audience outside of Iceland. They would know where their country is in relation to others. Also, native Icelanders would be aware of where there highlands are I’d assume since its such a small country, and the population is very much centered around main city hubs. I wish I would have included city names, or at the very least the capital, Reykjavik. I don’t know how useful it would be to list other major cities for an international audience. The capital, for sure. I forgot to right the label on the city. Another aspect to communicate more information would have been to highlight cities, and use circles to show the ratio of people living in each vicinity. I would estimate that this would show the low population of the highlands. This would support the fact that this development really is encroaching on untouched land, wild nature.

I never got a response from the administrator of the website to use their photos, so I updated with creative commons photos for the “What’s at stake?” side panel. I also edited this section again to repeat the circle pattern I used on the left of map as a key. With colors, I tried to create a glow around the island in the main map. Printed it came out well, if not a little strong, but for some reason it’s still not appearing in the .ai file or any on screen version of the file.

I have struggled with keeping my stories really timely/relevant, so I was proud that I found something so pressing and important now to understand before decisions are made. Even the little pull out I have from the inset is timely, within a few weeks, of the UK making a deal to create a pipeline to siphon energy from the volcanoes’ energy. The only thing I mainly wish went differently during research was that I found more data references because I mainly referenced other press releases, articles, and the young website created quickly.

Click on the image to see the full graphic.

For this project, I really struggled to settle on a topic. I considered a lot of different ideas, but had a difficult time finding data for them that would translate into a map. That being said, when I found a substantial amount of data for state teen pregnancy rates and types of sex education, I was ecstatic (and relieved).

There was a lot of data to sift through, but I ended up choosing to use information on teen pregnancy rates by state, global teen pregnancy rates, states that stress abstinence-only sex education and the outcomes of teen pregnancy.

The main graphic is a chloropleth of the United States showing the ranges of teen pregnancy rates across the country. Drawing the map took longer than anticipated, but it was manageable. In addition to shading the states corresponding to its pregnancy rate, I also used black dots to indicate which stressed abstinence in their sex education. I don’t know if I’m 100 percent happy with the way I chose to make that distinction, but I think it gets the point across. In addition to that, I charted the pregnancy rates of a few countries I could find to show just how high the U.S.’s was in comparison.

I think this is a really important issue, and seeing it displayed visually makes it clear that sex education in the U.S. needs to be restructured.

Click to enlarge!

Indiana has always been known as a basketball state, and I wanted to prove that to be accurate with this graphic. I wanted to create a graphic that showed how many basketball players each state produced. I would have loved to have collected data from all Division I NCAA basketball teams, but time did not allow it. I instead chose to take data from only the AP Top 25 teams. When I collected the data I found that Indiana did produce the most basketball players, second to only California, but California also had a much higher population, which I adjusted for in the top graphic.

Overall, I’m very happy with the way that my graphic turned out. I chose orange as my main color because it is the color of a basketball. I also chose to include the locations of each Top 25 team because those locations definitely have an impact on where players are coming from. I was worried that it would make the map look too busy, but I also think it was necessary to include the information. I also chose to include smaller graphics showing the raw un-adjusted data and where each Indiana player was from to add more context. One of the major ways I think I could have improved my graphic would be by simply collecting more data. Perhaps either data from every team, or data from multiple years would have been beneficial, but doing so would have also made it more complicated.

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