Abstract
Using Free Demographic Datasets to Support Teaching and Researching Projects
Track: Teaching with GIS in Higher Education
Author(s): German Diaz
Two free Web-based resources—the broad range of demographic characteristics available in the U.S. Census 2000 and the TIGER/Line Cartographic Boundaries available in the Esri/Data Web site—can be integrated using ArcGIS to provide valuable information to university faculty and students. At Rice University, faculty and students from Social Science, Political Science, Architecture, and Statistics departments are using this information to support their teaching and research projects. This paper demonstrates tips and tricks to obtain and integrate demographic information, explains some methods to display demographic characteristics effectively using ArcGIS and, finally, shows several examples of the use of this technique in academic research projects.
German Diaz
Rice University
1600 Main
Houston, TX 77005
US
Phone: 713-348-2595
E-mail: gdiaz@rice.edu