Introducing Curriculum Resources
An increasing number of college and graduate classes in social sciences, health sciences, and other disciplines are using PolicyMap as a way to bring data and spatial analysis to students. In Sociology, it’s being used to show the relationship between toxic waste sites and lower income minority neighborhoods. In Public Health, it’s being used to identify populations with elevated health risks. In Public Policy, it’s being used to find ways to increase resilience in communities at risk of natural disasters.
One thing we’d heard from professors was that it would be helpful to have resources available for them introduce PolicyMap to their class, like handouts with basic instructions, or ideas for integrating PolicyMap into their syllabus.
So we created a new section of our site, Curriculum Resources. This has four major components:
- Assignments, papers, and syllabi from colleges and universities around the country that have made use of PolicyMap
- Sample exercises that professors can give to students, or rewrite to fit the context of their classes
- Short videos showing how PolicyMap has been used to teach concepts in classes
- Webinars in which professors have discussed how they’ve taught data and spatial analysis concepts using PolicyMap
We’ll be adding new useful content to this resource on an ongoing basis. If you’ve used PolicyMap in your class or for a paper and want to be featured, or if there’s anything more you’d like to see here that you think would be helpful, please let us know.
Take a look and let us know what you think!