Instructors! Do you use census data in your courses? The Web site described below might be beneficial to you and your students. (If you feel the language the author used in this quote is too technical, just go to the Web site link and check it out.)
"Irman Haque has developed a mashup of Google Earth with data from the U.S. Census Bureau, called gCensus. The app uses the XML format known as KML (Keyhole Markup Language), which can create shapes and colors on the maps displayed by GE. Haque had to build custom code libraries (which he's made available as open source) that could generate KML for the project. He also had to extract the relevant data from the highly counter-intuitive Census Bureau files and store them in a database that could handle geographic data. gCensus lets you do stuff like create colorful overlays on maps showing population ages, race, and family size distributions."
This site could inspire you to design a fascinating class project for students. They could generate their own population maps to study diversity or marketing aspects in their own communities! If you have additional comments on this site, please let us know.
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