Interactive Map from the U.S. Census

The United States Census has a new interactive map that lends itself to many mathematical explorations. Students can explore statistics, various forms of data, interpreting graphs, finding percents, etc. 

The site also has a multimedia page that contains a video titled Statistics All Around Us.  This video explains why we need Census data.  The video could also be used as a teaching tool by using some of the statistics given to form and answer math problems.

For example, they state that 1 in 4 deaths are due to Heart Disease.  You could pose questions such as:

Based on its population, how many people in Texas would you expect to die of heart disease in 2010?

Which state would you expect to have the most deaths from heart disease in 2010?  The least?  Why?

This site lends itself perfectly to the type of math problems discussed in the videos of Dan Meyer and the Problem Based Learning video by Buck Institute of Education, BIE.


Interactive Map from the U.S. Census by Love of Learning Educational Services, LLC is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.