Abstract
Teaching Redistricting During a Census Rollout
Track: Teaching with GIS Across the Curriculum
Authors: William Harris, Jean-Philippe Faletta
The departments of political science and environmental science and studies co-offered a course in redistricting in the spring of 2011, as the 2010 Census data was being distributed. The course was a combination political science and GIS course where students learned to use GIS and the redistricting extension, were taught the rules and political realities of redistricting (gerrymandering), and were able to use the 2010 Census data to make their own redistricting maps for the state of Texas. The course also proved to be a challenge for the professors when the Texas data sets came out and exceeded the million-line limit of most available software to parse out the pertinent lines of data. While challenging, the course turned out to be an excellent example of how GIS can be used 'on the fly' to enhance learning in a variety of disciplines.
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