Geography Course Handouts: Geography 120 Exercise

Social Explorer Exercise / Geography 120

Greg Armento, Geography Librarian greg.armento@csulb.edu

October 30, 2019

Suggestion: Chrome browser seems to work better than Safari

Exercise 1: Create A Demographic Report

1. Go to Social Explorer https://csulb.libguides.com/socexp

(You may need to log in with your My CSULB Account if prompted)

2. If using off campus click on Use As Guest
3. Click on   

(you can take a “tour” or skip it)

4. Double click on the map OR use the +  or – zoom function in the lower right of screen. This will get you to the area you want. Keep zooming until the area is in the screen.

(Note how the box in the upper left changes from State to County or Census Tract or Block Group as you zoom in)

5. Once you have the neighborhood onscreen, go to upper left box, click on the icon  and select Create Report

(The map changes to a blank grey color)

6. Find your neighborhood, hover over the map and click on your tract. The tract will change color indicating you selected it. Click on two or three neighboring tracts. Don’t do more than four tracts or your report will be to long. If you pick the wrong track, simply click on it again to remove it. 
7. After selecting your 3 or 4 tracts, look at left side of screen. Look for white box that says Topic. Drop that down to Comprehensive Report.
8. Click on blue box at top that reads    A statistical report opens in a new tab.
9. At the upper right of report, look for “Tables Per Page”.  Drop that down to 50 tables. And Drop“Geos per page” to 100 Items. Now all data on your report is on one scrollable scree​n
10. You can use print function on your keyboard, or to save link to report (in color), go to upper right of screen, look for icon. That will create a link to your report. Copy it and e-mail it to yourself. The report will reappear. You may have to log in to your mycsulb account to see report at home.

 

Exercise 2: Create a Ethnic Distribution Demographic Map

1. Go to Social Explorer
2. Click on  
3. Double click on the map OR use the +  or – zoom function in the lower right of screen. This will get you to the area you want. Keep zooming until the area is in the screen.
4. Go to  at upper left of screen
5. Select RACE
6. Scroll down TOTAL POPULATION

(you can’t select more than 5 at a time below)

7. Mark these boxes. Carefully follow example exactly as shown in graphic below

• White Alone
• Black or African American Alone
• Asian Alone
• Two or More Races
• Hispanic or Latino

8. On the right you will see a map depicting predominant ethnic group per census tract. Hover over a census tract and you will see what group predominates.
9. Use the  icon to create a link to your map. You may have to sign in to your My CSULB account to open at home. You can also print out a screenshot, but it might be in black and white unless you have a color copier.

 

Bonus Exercise: Create an Income Map

1. Clear your work by clicking on  icon at far upper left of screen. Start over. Click on  icon.
2. Zoom into the area that you want to map.
3. Click on 
4. Click on Income and pick an income level
5. Let’s map the wealthy. Click on Income More than $200,000
6. Zoom in to the level of detail you want to see.
7. Click on  icon to save link to map. Or you can print it with print command.