The following is a listing of demos of student projects done in the Fall 2024 Principles of Computing course. The students found their choice of data source from resources online and decided how they want to examine, analyze and visualize the data.
| Section | Project ID | Topic/Link | Members |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 1 | Exploring Housing Affordability and Economic Disparities | Christina Daw, Salvador Zanatti |
| 2 | 2 | Bee Population Analysis | Steven Mantello, Lucy Bullock |
| 2 | 3 | Crime in LA | Meghan Belden, Sam Viner |
| 2 | 4 | Dating with Data | Kevin Sadler, Parker Salomone |
| 2 | 5 | The impact of social media on mental health | Molly Reidy, Maria Emilia Salceda |
| 2 | 6 | Leading Causes of Death and Insurance Information | Adriana Tzul Gutierrez, Ethan VonHedemann |
| 2 | 7 | Crime Data | Angela Calva, Cristal Sotelo |
| 2 | 8 | The Impact of Book Circulation on Academics | Ethan Coleman, Daniel Rueda-Ramirez |
| 2 | 9 | Electric Vehicle Trends | Kip Miller, James Phillips |
| 2 | 10 | Risks of Obesity in the US | Elena Busk, Ben Bailey |
| 2 | 11 | Drug Overdose Crisis in the United States and California | Jedrick Wilson, Arnav Soni |
| 2 | 12 | How states react to inflation | Matthew Van Cooten, Sean Patnett |
| 2 | 13 | Hurricane Impacts over the past 20 years | Amayieh Davis |
| 2 | 14 | Exploring Determinants of Success Among Chicago Public Schools | Emily Manfred, Leah Perila |
| 2 | 15 | Leading Causes of Death | Enanu Smart, Stacey Afriyie, Gabrielle Fakunle |
| 2 | 16 | Women's Contraceptive Use | Ivy Liu, Corrina Foggia |
| 2 | 17 | Public Transportation Insights | Lee Reymond, Hugo Thomas, Daquan Ross |
Our project focuses on analyzing housing affordability, income disparities, and poverty trends across different regions and demographics to provide actionable insights for policymakers, employers, and urban planners. Using reliable governmental data sources, we highlight key findings, such as systemic wage disparities where White individuals earn consistently more than Black and Hispanic counterparts, significant variations in housing affordability across states like Maryland and California, and localized trends observed at the ZIP code level. Our analysis underscores the need for targeted interventions, such as designing affordability-based housing policies, implementing wage equity audits, and prioritizing mixed-income housing developments in regions with high poverty rates like Mississippi and Louisiana. Additionally, our findings emphasize the importance of granular, longitudinal data to uncover causal relationships between wages, housing costs, and demographic shifts. By leveraging these insights, stakeholders can promote equitable, sustainable, and inclusive solutions to address systemic economic challenges.
Our goal for this project was to explain to United States beekeepers the national and state trends for bee population growth and decline. Environmental plant life thrives when bee populations are strong, so this insect's wellbeing has important implications for the rest of an ecosystem. There is an estimated number of 115,000 to 125,000 beekeepers in the US, and (according to the United States National Agricultural Statistics Service) United States production of honey in 2022 totaled 125 million pounds. Besides producing honey and other honey-related items, bees are crucial to the environment, as they assist the pollination process that maintains plant and animal life. A decline in the bee population is detrimental to United States ecosystems, so conducting an analysis on the changes in the bee population and their causes may help beekeepers identify what they must do to ensure their bees thrive. Our visualizations regarding colony loss and percent colony loss highlight this decline in the bee population. Further analysis of top causes of colony loss serve to identify which causes are dominant over the others when it comes to impacting the largest percentage of colonies. Solutions such as colony renovation may be applied to mitigate this loss, as displayed through visuals on our site.
In this project, we analyzed data collected from the LAPD. This data told us about crimes that occurred in LA from 2020 to 2024. We delved into visualizing what types of crimes are the most common, where crimes are most often occurring, and what demographics are most affected by crime. Some major insights we gleaned included the prevalence of theft and the abundance of crime, particularly in the downtown Los Angeles area.
Our project explores the relationship between social media usage and mental health using two datasets from Kaggle. The data includes key demographics (age, gender, relationship status), time spent on social media, and mental health indicators like depression scores and suicide rates. Our visualizations focus on trends in depression across different groups, correlations between social media usage and mental health, and broader societal patterns. Major insights reveal that excessive social media usage is linked to higher depression scores, especially among younger individuals and vulnerable populations, while societal events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, appear to amplify mental health challenges. These findings highlight both the risks of digital overuse and the potential for social media to support mental health awareness and interventions.
HealthInsights aims to provide a collection of data visualizations that would help people who will soon become eligible for Medicare to consider whether or not they should sign up for coverage. The data will demonstrate the relationship between rates of Medicare participation and the rates among common causes of death. The two datasets that we used came from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
Our project explores the factors influencing crime rates across various U.S. communities in 2018. The dataset includes 146 variables, capturing detailed demographic information such as population, age, racial composition, and income levels, alongside crime statistics for various offenses and overall crime rates. By visualizing correlations between demographic factors and crime rates, we uncovered key patterns and insights. For instance, we found how poverty levels can impact the frequency of crimes, the relationship between unemployment rates and different types of offenses, and the variation in crime types between Northern and Southern states.
Our topic is the impact of book circulation on academic performance in Chicago. Our first data source contains academic progress reports and performance indicators for public schools in the city of Chicago. Our second data source tracks book circulation from Chicago public libraries. To compare these two data sources, we calculated average academic performance indicators and average book circulation rates by zip code. This allowed us to depict any possible correlations between library circulation and different measures of academic performance (i.e. reading and math scores, ACT scores, graduation rates, and college enrollment rates and numbers) using scatterplots, bar graphs, and a bubble graph. Overall, we found that as the grade level increases, the positive relationship between book circulation and academic performance decreases to the point of little or no significance.
Electric vehicle trends. Comparisons of money being invested, fuel efficiency, fuel production, EV market trends
We looked at obesity rates in the US and other topics related to obesity, like heart disease mortality and diabetes. We had to do a lot of cleaning for some of the data so that it was usable. We visualized the data mostly state by state, using choropleths, bar graphs, and parallel coordinate charts. One insight we found was states that had high rates of obesity, heart disease mortality, and diabetes. We also found that while the three rates we looked at were not strongly correlated, they were somewhat correlated with the population.
Our topic focuses on the drug epidemic and how it has affected the United States over the past few years. Our data sources were public information from kaggle and federal data files from government websites. We wanted to visualize the increase in drug overdose rates, and compare these rates to the fentanyl breakdown of these deaths. We initially focused on California, and extrapolate this data to focus on the San Francisco county.
We decided to look at a majority of the states in the US and compare the average inflation rate per year in its relation to tradable versus non tradable sectors. We wanted to analyze how states in treatment versus control groups over came this using wage adjustments(if present). We obtained our data from national bureau of labor statistics and US department of labor. One of the more insightful aspects was how much policies affected inflation in states differently and how there was a general consensus in how to react among the treatment and control groups. While it doesn't necessarily say which is better versus worse we do see states that increased wage, have higher effects when there is times of deflation and inflation.
Our project analyzes the factors that influence educational well-being and success within Chicago Public Schools using the 2011-2012 Progress Report Card dataset. The purpose is to provide parents, educators, and other stakeholders with an accessible way to explore detailed school performance data through interactive visualizations. These visualizations, including scatter plots, histograms, and parallel category diagrams, explore relationships between academic, behavioral, and environmental factors within education. This site illustrates the interconnectedness of various educational metrics, showing how factors like student safety, family involvement, ambitious instruction, and academic performance are closely linked. Visualizing these relationships helps demonstrate this point and offers a holistic perspective on the factors influencing Chicago Public Schools, which is integral for families evaluating which schools may be best for their children.
This project examines the leading causes of death in North America, utilizing data from CSV files that provide detailed information about various causes and the number of deaths associated with each. One dataset specifically focuses on the United States, including a breakdown by state, while others compare trends across North America. Through our visualizations, we analyzed the percentages and distributions of these causes of death to identify their relative impact. Our project also includes an interactive website that organizes and presents these findings in an accessible format, featuring charts, graphs, and a comparative analysis of major trends. Key insights from the data reveal the significant burden of heart disease in the United States, while Canada shows a greater prevalence of deaths from genetic disorders during the fetal period.
Our topic was on contraceptive usage around the world. We used datasets from the CDC, Data.gov, and University of Oxford. We used different types of graphs to showcase the level of contraceptive use. We compared it with age, education, and race. We created a map that showed countries that are known for poverty to be higher on the fertility rate with hardly any contraceptive usage. We also saw an increase of use as people get older.
Public transportation is an important part of the lives of millions of Americans. We selected public transit data from two major cities across the United States, New York and Chicago, and created various visualizations to help riders, administrators, and lawmakers alike improve public transportation experiences.
It's an incredibly challenging dating environment that we're placed in. Simply finding a person with the right intentions is hard, but the hardest part is landing the date when you do find Mr. or Ms. Right. Let data lead be your cupid. We analyzed data pertaining to speed dating and created visuals to exhibit the reality of the dating market today and the challenges people face. Ultimately, the fix must come mostly from within, and that change starts with you. If you’re an American willing to have kids but haven’t yet, let the data guide you. Civilizational collapse is only an issue if we let it become one. With collective and top-down action, there’s a road to a bright American future. It is said that “it takes a village to raise a child,” but it will take our children to maintain the village.