This week in Everything is Physical we continued to work with leaflet.js. The assignment was to add at least one geoJSON layer and at least one marker or pop-up to a map. In addition we were to think about what relationship/story/correlation (or lack thereof) we are trying to show.

I traveled in South Africa and Mozambique over break this winter and I was struck being face to face with the effects that both climate change and poaching are having on the animal population there. I started to look for data sets having to do with this.

I looked at some big data sets, but then started thinking that rather than showing the breadth of a problem by mapping it all—for example rising sea levels or global temperature shifts—what if I showed the breadth of a problem with a nearly empty map.

I decided to focus on a report that I heard earlier this year about the last male northern white rhinoceros. He’s getting old and not mating successfully, so this particular species will likely go extinct when he dies.

The map has a bold title announcing the “global population” of the species, and shows an elaborate key, but then has only one data point for Sudan in Kenya (his name is Sudan, he lives in Kenya. Confusing, I know).

I think the resulting map is a bit gimmicky, but I think it’s an interesting concept and could be developed to be more effective.

See the map live here: http://lmj.io/projects/mapping/assignment-2/