Chapter 1 Activity Answers
FROM YOUR INSTRUCTOR
Students must keep in mind that this is a geography class and geographers study WHERE thisngs are and WHY they are THERE. These activities concentrate on the WHERE question of geography. For many of the questions you have to look at a map and describe WHERE the map indicates most African Americans live. To answer such questions you must indicate PLACES. If the question asks for the "distribution" or the "map pattern" , or "spatial pattern" or even your "impression" or map "problems", you will have to discuss WHERE.
Most, if not all questions refer to WHERE. Look at the maps and DESCRIBE WHERE (i.e. list places).
Activity 1
For the map SCALE questions keep this in mind:
* small scale = small detail
* large scale = large detail
Activity 2
Choropleth maps show percentages, Circle and dot maps show magnatude, or actual numbers. Your textbook says (p.18)
"The map displayed is County Choropleth, where each county is classified into one of four classes and assigned a pattern as shown in the map legend. Notice this map shows the percentage of African Americans per county, not the actual number. Choropleth maps are used to show intensity, such as percentages, rather than magnitude, such as total numbers. You will later see maps that show magnitude, such as the total number of African Americans."
and (p.19):
"A graduated circle is a type of proportional symbol, where the size of the circle varies with the value for each county. This graduated circle map shows magnitude, where each circle is a different size depending on the total number of African Americans per county."
It is possible that a state with a large percentage of African Americans actually has fewer than a state with a smaller percentage. HOW? It depends on the population of the state. Whenever you see a % you must ask "percent of what?" Look at table 1.2 on page 23. California's population is 6.7% African American, but this equals 2,263,882. whereas Mississippi is 36.3% African American, but has only 1,033,809.
Your textbook says (p.19):
"In fact, only about one-half of all African Americans live in the South. About the same number live outside the South in large urban areas of the Northeast, Midwest, and West."
Other helpful hints:
* Always read the Chapters web page before doing the activities.
* Read the questions CAREFULLY and answers ALL PARTS
* MORE is better than less. If you need more space use the back of the sheet or an additional sheet.
ANSWERS FROM THE INSTRUCTOR'S MANUAL:
Activity 1
1.1 4 inches on the map x 31,680 = 126,720 inches on the surface of the earth.
1.2 Dividing 126,720 inches by 12 in/ft and again by 5280 ft/mile, gives 2 miles on the surface of the earth. One can also get this answer in an easier way if one realizes that 1:31,680 is the same as one inch equals one-half mile, so four inches equals four-half miles, or two miles.
1.3 40 inches.
1.4 A (1/24,000 is the largest scale).
1.5 Map B is larger scale.
1.6 Campus would appear larger at 1:500 than at 1:5000.
1.7 The population has gotten more concentrated (there are fewer shades of grey and more extreme values of white and black). (Note: a good way to help students visualize this is via analogies. The population “getting more spread out” is akin to starting with clumps of peanut butter on bread (1900) and spreading it evenly over the bread (1997). The population “getting more concentrated” is akin to starting with sawdust spread evenly over a floor (1900) and sweeping it into piles (1997).)
1.8 The population of the New York metropolitan area has gotten more spread out (the colors of various counties are more consistently gray, with less of the extreme values of black and white).
1.9 While in general the United States has moved from being largely rural to mostly urban over this time frame, within urban areas the shift has been away from densely populated central cities to a more uniform spread across cities and suburbs.
Activity 2: United States
2.1 The county choropleth map suggests most African-Americans live in the southeast U.S.
2.2 New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit.
2.3 The false impression created by the County Choropleth map is that there are few African-Americans living outside of the Southeast. The false impression of the County Circle map is that most African-Americans live in large urban centers and few live in the rural Southeast. (Note: You might want to emphasize to your students, either during a lab session or when handing back materials, that it is the impressions these maps give off that is inaccurate, not the data on which they are based. Both maps are based on the same information.)
2.4 The overlapping circles in the New York area minimizes the impression of the number of African Americans in counties surrounding New York. (Actually, the largest circle is for Kings County, which contains Brooklyn.) The large circle of the dominant city obscures the adjacent county boundaries, which makes it difficult to determine with which counties each circle is associated.
2.5 The drawback of using dot maps is that counties with fewer than the threshold for the dot size do not appear at all. Also, the dot cutoff is arbitrary. A county with 14,999 blacks has no dots, while a county with 15,000 blacks has 1 dot. Some students might also note that because the level of aggregation for these data is county-based rather than city-based, the dots are placed randomly throughout the county instead of in specific urban areas where more African Americans (or individuals of any ethnicity, for that matter) are likely to be found.
2.6 The dot map with 1 dot for each 50,000 African Americans emphasizes urban places and minimizes the appearance of the rural South as a region of African American residence. Few counties in the South have the requisite 50,000 African American residents for inclusion as a dot on the map. Most counties in the U.S. don’t have 50,000 people altogether, let alone 50,000 blacks. The map is biased against small counties. Interestingly, this result stands in sharp contrast to the Aboriginal case study in Canada, where the exact opposite is true—the smaller dot cutoff (200 African Americans) emphasizes urban census divisions by clumping many dots together in Western cities, while at 5,000 Aboriginals per dot, most census divisions have either 0, 1, or 2 dots, and as a result, no region stands out.
2.7 In the state map, the northern and western states with large cities, such as Illinois, New York, and California, stand out more than on the county map. On the state map, you can’t tell that most blacks in these three states are highly concentrated in just a few counties, while on the county map you can’t tell that those few counties with a lot of blacks are enough to bring up the percentage of the whole state. Other noticeable differences are:
The upland/lowland South divide is very clear on the county map, not on the state map
Maryland is more pronounced on the state map
The West Virginia/Virginia split is very clear on the state map
Missouri on the county map appears to have few African Americans, while on the state map it’s rather high because of extreme concentration in Kansas City and St. Louis.
2.8 The red-blue and blue-red color schemes have no obvious high-low progression of shades. Also, several color ramps are reversed, so that darker shades aren’t higher values, which is counterintuitive.
2.9 There really isn’t a single correct answer to this question. This is an opportunity for the students to think critically and justify their conclusion. It can be argued that the equal interval map with 4 classes is the most misleading map because it gives the impression that most of the country (30 states, most of which are geographically large) has very few African Americans. In fact, California has the second most African Americans, after New York. California and Oklahoma, at 7% black, are very different than Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, South Dakota, at 1% or less. On the other hand, it can be argued that the equal frequency map with 6 classes is most misleading because it gives the impression that only a few western states have small percentages of blacks, when in fact the entire West except for Texas are under 7%. Oregon and New Mexico, at 2% black, are barely different than the aforementioned Western states, yet in the 6-class Equal Frequency map they are colored in a darker shade, and Arizona and Colorado, at 3–4% black, are a darker shade still.
2.10 When you choose 4 categories that distinguish between southern states (14–36%) the West gets lumped entirely within one category, since all the western states except Texas are 7% or less. The distinction between California and Nevada (7%) and the others (4% or less) gets lost. (Note: this question can also be reversed—if you choose categories to distinguish among western states, what happens to the other regions?)
2.11 There is no single right answer to the “best” classes. Students should have a good justification for whatever they choose.
2.12
a. There is more rapid change between South Carolina and Kentucky.
b. There is more rapid change between New Mexico and Louisiana.
c. Almost ALL of Oklahoma is in the 6–9% range, including Tulsa and Oklahoma City (the 2 main population centers). Only a small part is less than 6% or greater than 12%. A very good estimate for the average percent black in Oklahoma would be 8%.
2.13 Some possible good answers are:
a. Mississippi stands out on the state isoline map but not on the county choropleth map.
b. The declining African American population in New England shows up on the state isoline map and not on the county choropleth map.
c The county choropleth map shows a large center-coast variation within Florida, whereas the state isoline map primarily shows a north-south variation.
d. The West Virginia “hole” shows up dramatically in the state isoline map but not in the county choropleth map.
2.14
A partial list of TV shows and movies prominently portraying African Americans, as reported by Arizona State University students in Spring, 2001. This list is definitely not representative of the full range of TV shows and movies featuring African Americans, but it does represent how predominantly white university students answered the question in Spring 2001.
TV shows:
* Cosby Show – urban (New York)
* Family Matters – urban (Chicago???)
* Fresh Prince of Belaire – suburban (southern California)
* Good Times – urban (Chicago) ???
* In Living Color – placeless sketch comedy Martin – urban (Detroit) ???
* Sanford and Son – urban (Detroit???) Sister, Sister – suburban
* The Hughleys – suburban ???
* The Jeffersons – urban (New York City)
* The Wayan Brothers – ???
* Touched by An Angel –
Movies:
* A Time to Kill (1996) – rural-urban southeast (Mississippi)
* Beverly Hills Cop (1984, 1987, 1994) – urban (Detroit/L.A.)
* Boyz N The Hood (1991) – urban (Los Angeles)
* Do The Right Thing (1989) – urban (Brooklyn)
* Dr. Dolittle (1998) – urban
* Finding Forrester (2000) – urban (New York City)
* Ghosts Of Mississippi (1996) – rural southeast (Mississippi)
* Glory (1989) – southeast
* How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998) – Jamaica (on vacation)
* Love and Basketball – suburban (California)
* Malcolm X (1992) – urban
* Menace II Society (1993) – urban (south-central L.A.)
* Mo' Better Blues (1990) – urban (New York)
* Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000) – college town
* Roots (TV movie, 1970s) – rural southeast
* The Color Purple (1985) – rural southeast
* The Nutty Professor (1996) – college town
* Waiting to Exhale (1995) – urban (Phoenix)
For more examples, and for commentary, some web sites on African American films and TV include:
* http://new.blackvoices.com/
* http://www.blackflix.com/
* http://www.everythingblack.com/
* http://www.blackdvdonline.com/
* http://www.africanamericanfilm.org/
* http://www.seeingblack.com/
* http://www.usablackent.com/
* http://www.ebony.com/
* http://www.bet.com/
2.15 Students may come up with different answers to this question based on which shows they thought of when answering the previous question. Some students may be mostly familiar with urban films, and they may say that the rural south is underrepresented and that African Americans are being stereotyped as urban.
2.16
Comparing County Choropleth Map andCounty Circle Maps.
Whites
Whites seem to be found in most counties in all regions of the United States, but with higher and more consistently high concentrations in the entire northern half with the exception of parts of Alaska.
The Northeast, Midwest, West Coast, Texas, and Florida stand out, along with urban areas in other parts of the country. Appears to resemble a graduated circle map of the entire U.S. population.
Hispanic Americans
Mainly spread across the Southwest with the heaviest concentrations along the U.S.–Mexico border, but also some minor concentrations in Florida and the Northeast.
Southern California stands out above and beyond all other regions, but the entire Southwest is prominent. Florida, New York, and Chicago are more prominent than in the choropleth map.
Asian Americans
Scattered throughout the United States, but heaviest concentrations in the Northeast and, especially, the West Coast and, if one is looking carefully, Hawaii.
Predominantly California and Hawaii, with secondary concentrations in the Northeast, Seattle, Chicago, and Texas cities, with very little in between. Hawaii was shaded dark in the choropleth map, but because the area shaded was so small, Hawaii did not make nearly as large an impression as in the circle map.
American Indians/ Eskimos/Aleuts
Remote areas of the West stand out, especially Alaska, the Four Corners, the Upper Great Plains, and Oklahoma.
Oklahoma and the Four Corners again stand out, but the Upper Great Plains are joined by Southern and Northern California, the Pacific Northwest, North Carolina, and more visible concentrations in the Great Lakes, the Northeast, and Florida.