CSCI 187 Final Project Reflection
My final project is a visual representation of data about the South Sudanese refugee crisis. I became interested in this topic because my Honors Thesis that I have worked on throughout this past year was a philosophical analysis of statelessness, so I knew I wanted to focus this project on the statistical side of a refugee crisis. I chose South Sudan because it is an enormous refugee issue that lacks significant media coverage, and is still currently at its peak. All my data for the project originates from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees report on the South Sudanese crisis, which was published in 2017: http://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/UNHCR%20South%20Sudan%202018%20Supplementary%20Appeal_March%202018.pdf.
In order to visualize data from different aspects of the crisis, I decided first to represent the number of refugees flowing out of South Sudan into neighboring countries using circles that corresponded to the size of each migrant population. Overlaying the circles with a map of South Sudan and all its surrounding countries, I decided it would be a powerful visualization to show which countries took on disproportionate numbers of refugees to their size and infrastructural capacity. On the map, the circles show that the amount of refugees displaced within South Sudan is incredibly high, and the number of refugees fleeing to Uganda is also very high as both circles encompass the size of the territories of those countries themselves. On the other hand, other circles show the lower amounts of refugees taken on by certain countries, like the Central African Republic.
Another important aspect of the crisis that I wanted to cover was funding allocated to certain countries for the support of growing populations of migrants to each territory. The data I used was conclusive for the fiscal year of 2017, and made projections about the continued flight of refugees for 2018. I decided that I would somehow represent the projected data for 2018, and decided that a slider to alternate between the two years would be an effective way to represent the changes that would occur come 2018. I initially had the idea to adjust the circle sizes according to the slider value, but eventually determined it would be equally effective and less complicated to display arrows on the screen indicating the predicted flow of refugees in 2018 to the top 2 receiving countries. According to the slider’s location at 2018, arrows appear on the screen indicating the additional number of refugees both Sudan and Uganda receive in the year 2018, because those numbers are drastically more significant than the other receiving nations.
To share details about the funding that each country receives, I allowed for the user to roll their mouse over each circle to see read text about each country’s funding allocated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in addition to the exact number of refugees that each country had received as of 2017.
The most difficult part of this project was figuring out how to coordinate the exact number of people with the size of each circle, in addition to attempting to visualize data that changes drastically every year. I ended up using the map function to adjust the size of each circle to the year 2017, but I was curious how I could have adjusted the circle size to represent the changes in data over time. If I had had more time to complete this project, I would have included data from earlier years of the conflict, dating back to 2013 when it began, to demonstrate how the numbers of refugees fleeing the country has grown exponentially since the beginning of the crisis. I would have incorporated these years into the slider mechanism, while also attempting to adjust the size of the circles according to how many people had most recently emigrated from South Sudan.
Overall, I feel that this project is an accurate representation of many skills (and functions) that I have learned throughout the semester. Though I started simply running code to draw circles in the draw() function, I slowly grasped the overall concepts of computer science, which are surprisingly simple once you understand their universality in the language: if you want to change your circle size, input your variable in the size parameter of your ellipse drawing. If you want to change the x value, input that same variable in that argument’s place. I think this course absolutely helped me to understand logical thinking much more deeply, and I believe that I am a better critical problem-solver as a result. I think this project reflects my understanding of object-oriented programming, and the logic of the map function, as I figured that one out myself! I’m looking forward to seeing where the skill base I have gained in this class will take me professionally in the future.
Here is the link to my project:
