CLIKS: GIS map of the day

Earlier today I posted an item at the LSNC main site that may be of interest to readers here: Stats on Steroids: “Kids Count 2007″ now available. But there is more than meets the eye with that linked item. The Kids Count site has always been a great resource for statistical data about children, but this latest iteration includes a slew of new interactive graphing and mapping tools that may be helpful to your advocates, wherever they are in the United States.

Allow me to exemplify: The site includes CLIKS, a set of tools for identifying “community-level information on kids.” If you select Maps, you are offered a very easily understood two-step process for creating a statewide map with county-level boundaries for viewing a wide range of select statistical indicators. For example, selecting California as the geographic area, you can then select a county-level indicator such as children living in poverty. That selection generates both a statewide map of California showing the relative concentration of child poverty by county, and a corresponding data table with the specific statistics for each county. You can then update the same map to select a different year or to change the size of the map and/or color-ramp scheme used.

But wait, there’s more! Generate a map and then hover your mouse over any of the counties and its displays the name and relative value mapped for the individual county! And if you call in the next ten minutes, you can click on a county in the map and it opens a new page with the statistical profile for that particular county!! And as if that all weren’t an extraordinary value in itself, at no extra cost you can save the map you created as a “web page complete” HTML file to your local desktop and the map image and clickable links all remain intact!!!

This description doesn’t begin to touch other tools like statistical graphing and rankings available at the same site. This is great stuff accessible and usable by all without the need for expertise in mapping or statistics. Everyday, it’s getting easier and easier to do this sort of thing on the Web.