All,

Last year, I worked with several professors who were teaching a freshman honors class.  Their students came to the library & talked to them about bias (implicit & explicit) in maps, touching on things like motivations behind the map makers, cultural perspective, what (who) was not shown, etc.

This year, the professors want to change things a bit.  They want to concentrate on the data behind the map.  Ideally, they would like to show the students a map & have them think/analyze/understand the map.  Then add a new layer of data to the same area (or show the data in a different way), then ask the students to note how their perspective has changed, etc.

• Has anyone created a similar assignment?
• Are there places I can find canned data/maps to use?
• What topics/areas would you recommend I use?

An interesting starting point is the Mapping Prejudice project in Minnesota.  

One topic I thought of was the presidential vote--who you can show votes in a number of ways to make things conform with your beliefs (counties won vs votes won)

I am not certain I am clearly describing the objectives, etc.

Many thanks in advance,