Detect patterns and uncover cause-and-effect relationships using the Mapping For Everyone web toolkit (http://www.esri.com/mappingforeveryone). By analyzing median age, home value, population change, household size, and other variables, you will be thinking critically and spatially while comparing differences between your neighborhood and others around the country.

I introduce the concept of contour plots in the PUMAS example called Contouring and Topo Maps. Contouring is a fun way to help students develop estimation and spatial visualization skills. With contouring you imagine yourself looking down at a landscape and trying to represent hills and valleys on a flat map. The next step is to try to visualize what you see if you take a vertical slice, a cross section, out of your landscape.