Data Literacy

GEOG 30323: Data Analysis & Visualization

Dr. Kyle Walker

2026-08-25

Introductions

Course goals

Syllabus

Why data analysis and visualization?

Brainstorm: how might you use data if you were…

  • …an oil and gas landman?
  • …a real estate broker?
  • …a TCU athletics department staffer?
  • …a social media influencer?

What you will learn in this course

This course covers the process of exploratory data analysis, which includes how to:

  • Find data
  • Load data
  • Clean data
  • Summarize data
  • Visualize data
  • Present data
  • Example question: what are the most popular female baby names in Texas, and how has this changed over time?

Finding data

Source: Social Security Administration

Loading and cleaning data

Summarizing data

Visualizing data

Presenting data

Baby Names Explorer

Data science

Source: The Onion

Data Literacy

From your feed

2.2 million views. Is it true?

Discuss:

  • What exactly is she claiming here?
  • Who benefits if you believe it?
  • What data could prove this one way or another?

What plumbers actually earn

What the data says

  • The median full-time U.S. plumber earns about $59,000
  • 1 percent of full-time plumbers earn more than $250,000
  • A claim can be true of someone and still be incorrect, which we see by visualizing the overall distribution

The crowd ran the same check

Viral maps on social media

Millions of views, but is it true?

Discuss:

  • Do you think this map is accurate?
  • Why, or why not?

Information is plentiful, understanding is scarce

  • Confident, professional-looking claims have never been cheaper to produce
  • But deep understanding of how to verify those claims is still immensely valuable
  • In this course, we’ll work on developing that judgment.

Google CoLab