Workshop Goal: The goal of this workshop is to introduce participants to demographic data primarily collected by the U.S. federal government.  Participants will learn how to access and use data for their projects.

Outcomes: After this workshop, participants will find socio-economic demographic data for any census geographic area, create maps visualizing demographic data, and produce tables that can be downloaded into Microsoft Excel.

Description: Participants will become familiar with the data collected from the Decennial Census and the American Community Survey (ACS) and learn the differences between the two surveys.  Participants will learn how to access data from these surveys and create tables, maps, and visualizations using several commercial databases that use U.S. demographic data.

Detailed Contents:   
1. A brief overview of census surveys and questionnaires will be covered as well as census terminology and geographies.   
2. The instructor will demonstrate several databases and the functionality of each.   
3. Participants will then search for data and create data visualizations using one of the demonstrated databases.

Computers are available in this location, Jones 105. Participants can bring a laptop if they wish.