Crucial to studying population, urbanization, and environmental issues is the use of big data. Big data is exactly what it sounds like, collecting a large amount of data for research analysis. For example, demography, the study of population, uses population data to calculate fertility rate, mortality rate, and COVID-19 infection rate. Demography is also useful in studying migration patterns or environmental racism by understanding which groups move in and out of different neighborhoods. For this discussion/activity, we will use The CalEnviroScreen dataset from the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) to uncover the connections between areas of concentrated pollution and the people who live in them. The OEHHA publishes pollution, human health indicators, and demographic data for every census tract in California. The research question we are trying to answer is “Which communities (race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, age, etc.) bear the pollution burden?”
The CalEnviroScreen map has census tracts outlined and color-coded by relative pollution burden. Each census tract contains the same number of people—smaller census tracts have a higher density of people in them. Please follow the instructions and record your response in the discussion.
Use the CalEnviroScreen 4.0Links to an external site. mapping tool
Choose one green, one red, and one orange or yellow census tract (a total of 3), and take a screenshot of each showing the map and the Overall Percentiles. The colors on the map indicate the level of pollution burden, green indicates lower pollution burden, and pollution burden increases as with yellow, orange, and red, respectively.
Examine the data from the 3 census tracts you chose, and answer the following questions:
What are the racial/ethnicity profiles of the green, red, and orange or yellow census tracts you selected?
What is the poverty percentile for each?
What connections can you make between race/ethnicity, poverty, and pollution burden?
What other information did you find interesting in comparing and contrasting the pollution burden between the 3 census tracts?
Reflect on what you have learned from this activity.
Provide at least one solution to how you can contribute to environmental change in your community.
Remember to engage in the discussion by responding to TWO posts from your peers thoughtfully.
Please use the link down below for this essay please.
https://oehha.ca.gov/calenviroscreen/report/calenviroscreen-40
