Getting Started
If you are working from home or a computer lab on campus, the first thing you will need to is to determine if Google Earth is installed on your computer. On a PC, you should click on the Start button and search among the available programs for "Google Earth". You may also find it on your desktop.
If you determine that you do not have Google Earth installed, you will need to download it, by visiting the Google Earth Download web page. Follow the directions there to install the software on your computer. I think you'll like it, even if you're not a geography geek!
Once you have Google Earth on your computer, or are using a computer with Google Earth, it is time to open some maps on using Google Earth. The table below has a series of links to maps that your instructor has constructed on your behalf using a GIS, but exporting to a Google Earth friendly file (.kmz). Once you click on these files, your computer should automatically recognize them as Google Earth files, and automatically open them.
- If you computer does not automatically open these files, just download them to a place on your computer, or flash drive,then open the file using Google Earth.
- In Google Earth, click on File, then Open. A dialog box will open and you will search for the file you just downloaded. Click on the file to open the map.
- The files on the left column of the table above were constructed using data downloaded from the Los Angeles County Health Department's 2007 Health Survey.
- The data used to make these maps was compiled into a single Microsoft Excel file, which you may download and view here.
- Data and maps in the right column were compiled from the US Census Bureau and LA County Health Department.
For this exercise, you will click on the links above to open the associated Google Earth Maps. After following a demonstration exercise below, you will replicate the process, but with maps which appear to be most related to your area of interest.
Demonstration Analysis
To demonstrate how to do a simple analysis using Google Earth, read the introductory paragraph and follow the step-by-step instructions that follow.
Introduction
Suppose you want to identify a school to target for a series of educational presentations among Spanish speaking kids regarding healthy lifeways; getting outside to play. Here's how you might identify such a school using Google Earth.
Find three statistics of interest from the above list, with at least one should come from each column. You may want to select health indicators you think are related.
- Click on the Percent Hispanic and open the map in Google Earth.
- You should always open the most complex map first in Google Earth because it will be the hardest to manipulate.
- This color ramp, choropleth map will open and it will serve as your base map.
- Note the census tracts in the darkest brown; they have more than 80% Hispanic residents.
- Next, click on the "Fast Food" link above and open the map in Google Earth.
- When the map loads, it will be in your "Temporary Places" folder. Click on the plus (+) symbol to the left of the main map name, e.g. "Fast Food" to expand the file options below fast food.
- You may want to save each of these files/folders to "My Places" now or when you are prompted as you close or exit the program.
- Notice that there is a small description of the map contents, a legend which can be clicked on and clicked off, and a folder labeled "Data".
- Look at the map and move your mouse over each of the districts in the upper most percentile for Fast Food consumption. In this case, the four districts in the top percentile for childhood TV watching were: 1) Antelope Valley, 2) Bellflower, 3) Whittier and 4) San Antonio.
- Click on the plus sign (+) to the left of "Data" to see what's in that folder. It's each health district and the data associated with each district.
- Select the four districts in the Data Folder that have the highest rates of TV viewership (see above in bold) and click on the checkmark adjacent to their names to make them disappear.
- Note that you can now see the Percent Hispanic Map beneath the newly "disappeared" health districts.
- If you want, click on the minus sign (-) next to Data to hide the list of individual health districts on the fast food map..
- You may also want to hide the rest of the stuff associated with the "Fast Food" map, by clicking on the minus sign to the left of "Fast Food".
- DO NOT CLICK ON THE CHECK MARK! It will "erase" your de-selection of those four bad TV health districts.
- HOWEVER, you may want to turn off the Percent Hispanic map now. Just click the check mark next to Percent Hispanic..
- Next, click on the "Childhood Television" link above to open the map of excessive TV viewership.
- Open up the Childhood TV data folder by clicking the plus sign and deselect each of the health districts that are in the highest percentile (dark blue) for this data field.
- These include: South, East LA, Whittier, San Antonio, Antelope Valley and Southwest - ALL of these are in the darkest blue color.
- Now click the check mark next to "Percent Hispanic" to bring back the bottom layer displaying Percent Hispanic.
- Finally, click on the LA County Schools link above to add schools to the map.
- YOUR TASK: Move your mouse over the schools in the darkest brown (most Hispanic) census tracts until you find the one high school that in your target district.
- Must be over 80% Hispanic
- Top percentile for Fast Food
- Top percentile for Childhood TV viewing
In the boxes below, type your name, and the name of the high school you believe best fits the criteria above.
FOR YOUR PROJECT:
For the course project, with your project team, engage the lessons you've learned here with what you have learned about the health care concern you are studying to identify ideal locations for your educational / informational presentation.
You may also add additional layers of data, such as pharmacies, health clinics, community centers and churches to your analysis to customize it.
You may be asked to use one or more of the maps you make for your final presentation. Note that you can take screen captures of your work, as you progress and make a slide show or video of your analytic processes.
Ask Dr. Graves for help on this if you get stuck, but don't ask the night before it's due.
GOOD LUCK!
HAVE FUN!
LEARN MUCH!
