Here’s an interesting lesson to test your ArcGIS skills, determine the Mean Population Center for a State of interest. The goal here is to use spatial analysis and GIS to determine and analyze the population centers of the USA and individual states over space and time. Joseph Kerski tells us about the lesson… The activities and data sets in the lesson include background on a mean center and a weighted mean center, asks you to compute a mean geographic center, as well as a center that represents the center of the state centroids, and also a mean population center for the 50 states and for the 48 states for selected census years between 1790 and 2000 (also 2005).
Joe adds… The most interesting part is not so much the computing the different types of mean centers, but rather, thinking about and discussing the reasons why migration occurs, and why and how the USA and state population centers have moved over time, where they will move in the future, and why (employment, perception (sun belt, etc), lifestyle, immigration, the economy, rural to urban, past natural disasters (Dust Bowl), etc). A plethora of data awaits to be explored! Check out the lesson HERE