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Screenshot of our project's data visualization dashboard
Inspiration
Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time, and as a team we wanted to create something that would raise awareness about the impact of pollution on our environment. We wanted to create a tool that would make it easy for anyone to understand the real-world effects of industrial pollution and how it contributes to climate change patterns.
What it does
In essence, the website that we have created visualizes Nation-wide pollution data and links it to data of heat waves that have occurred across the country in a manner that makes it easy to comprehend the real impact of pollution.
How we built it
We started by gathering publicly available data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (https://www.epa.gov/ghgreporting/data-sets) on industrial emissions and heat waves. We then used python and pandas to process and clean the data. After that, we used plotly to plot the data on an interactive map, with different colors representing different levels of emissions. We also created a second map showing heat wave data to show the correlation between pollution and extreme weather patterns.
Challenges we ran into
One of the biggest challenges we faced during the project was finding the right data. We had to sift through a large amount of information from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to find the data sets that were relevant to our project. This process required a lot of time and effort to ensure that we had accurate and reliable data to work with.
Another challenge we faced was finding the right tools to show the data on an interactive map. We wanted to create a user-friendly interface that would allow anyone to understand the correlation between pollution and climate change patterns. This required a lot of experimentation with different visualization tools and libraries. We eventually found that python libraries such as pandas and plotly were the most suitable for our needs, but it took some trial and error to get there.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
One of the accomplishments we're most proud of is that we were able to use python libraries such as pandas and plotly for the first time and create a website from scratch. We had no prior experience with these tools, but we were able to learn quickly and use them effectively to process, clean and visualize the data. In addition to that, as a freshman-only team, we had to learn how to write a website using HTML and CSS with no prior experience.
What we learned
During the project, we learned about the importance of data cleaning and processing in order to make the information useful and easy to understand. We also learned how to use python libraries such as pandas and plotly to plot and visualize data in an interactive and user-friendly way.
What's next for Boiler Maps
Now that we have created a tool that effectively visualizes the impact of pollution on climate change, we want to use it to help find solutions to this pressing issue. Using interesting and relevant datasets which pertain to climate change, we want to look for matching patterns. Most of our work was sifting through datasets, and given more time, I think we would be able to get more productive outputs. Our next step is to work with organizations and individuals who are actively working to combat climate change. We plan to use our website as a tool to educate and inform decision-makers about the real-world effects of industrial pollution and how it contributes to climate change patterns.
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