Cholera Map Activity by Evan Sellers

Cholera Map Activity: Introduction to Geographic Fieldwork, Data, and Analysis
By Evan Sellers evansellers@gmail.com
Goal: I wanted to turn Dr. John Snow’s Cholera Map of 1854 into an inquiry
based activity to use primarily as an introduction to my geography classes.
My overall goal this year is to link the study of geography to real world jobs
so the students can see the importance of the discipline.
Likewise, I wanted a first day type of activity that would make the students
have to interact and engage in higher order thinking.
On the selfish side, I also sought to have a first day that stood out to my 9th
graders. I thought it would serve as a good public relations activity if they
went home and talked about the cool stuff they did in the geography class. I
know many teachers often review the syllabus and stuff like that, so I
thought I could capitalize on that and my class would stand out.
Set-up: Ultimately, I wanted the students to see the pattern of deaths and
figure out that Burger Shack on the “Southside” of town was making people
sick. (Note: We are West Florence High School and our rivals are South
Florence High School). However, during the first go I decided that I just
wanted the students to recognize the pattern and make an educated guess
rather than debating what could be the true cause. Each group had to offer
logical arguments for what they thought the cause of the outbreak was.
I turned my room into a town. The student desks served as the

houses/residences, the aisles between the desks served as the streets. My
projector was the “power plant,” some desks were labeled as the water
department, sewage treatment plant, and things like gas stations, hospitals,
fast food places, and other random things that might be in your town.
Above is a photo of my room. The aisle on the far right was “Knight Ave,”
the aisle on the far left was “West Ave,” and the 2nd aisle from the left was
Florence St. The front of the room by the Smart Board was “Front St” but
on my map it is labeled as “Back St.” I had the students change it to “Front
St” on the fly. At the front of the room I put a hospital, Gas station, Target,
Burger Shack, and the Power Plant (my projector). You can see the 2nd and
3rd aisles from the right served as a railroad track(BO Railroad) and an alley
(Utility Alley). In the back of the room is “Back St.” At the back of the room I
put another Burger Shack, a Lowes, and 2 gas stations. The curvy dotted
indicated a river. Each student desk in the picture is represented by an
empty rectangle on the map. I added some things just to serve as
distracters.
The row of desks on the far right is Row A, then Row B, Row C (Skip the
Sewage Treatment, Water Dept, and jail), Row D, Row E and on the far left is
Row F. Each desk in each row is given a number (A1, A2…B1, B2, etc.). To
keep it simple I gave each desk a “street number.”
In the picture below you can see the placards taped to the sides of the desks.
On the right side of “Knight Ave” is all the As and on the left side is all the
Bs. Like below:
B1 Knight Ave, Florence, SC 29501 A1 Knight Ave, Florence, SC 29501

The other streets were set up the same way with placards indicating the
addresses.
In addition to the addresses on the placards I listed the victims at each

address. I set it up so that the cluster of victims would be in the upper right
corner of the room/map near the “Burger Shack” closest to the address A1
Knight Ave, Florence, SC. I put some at other random places, but it was
easy to see when they plotted the data that the bulk of the victims were from
the upper right near A1.
I told students they needed a sheet of paper and a pencil.

Told them to fold the paper hot dog style in order to create 2 columns.
The left hand column was for documenting each address and the right hand
column was for documenting the age and sex of each of the victims at each
address. I added the ages and sexes of the victims as another distracter.
The slide below is the only real directions I gave them. However, I did
describe what their data collection would look like on their paper.
Once they collected the data they returned to their seats. I passed out the
map I created and they were told to plot the data using a solid line to
represent each victim at each address. Below is what I printed and used as
the placards:
Address: A1 Knight Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Victims: 14 year old male, 8 year old female, 34 year old female, 36 year
old male

Victims: 18 year old female

Victims: 21 year old male, 23 year old female, 22 year old female, 19 year
old male

Victims: 7 year old female, 32 year old male

Victims: None

Victims: 18 year old female, 12 year old male, 45 year old female, 42 year
old male
Address: B1 Knight Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Victims: 10 year old male, 30 year old female, 32 year old female

Victims: 25 year old male

Victims: 3 year old male, 8 year old male, 12 year old female, 16 year old
female, 49 year old female

Victims: 5 year old female, 10 year old female, 32 year old male

Victims: 16 year old female, 12 year old male
Address: C1 Florence St., Florence, SC 29501



Victims: None

Victims: None
Address: D1 Florence St., Florence, SC 29501

Victims: None

Victims: None

Victims: None

Victims: None
Address: E1 West Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Victims: 23 year old male, 20 year old female

Victims: None

Victims: None


Victims: None

Victims: None
Address: F1 West Ave., Florence, SC 29501


Victims: None

Victims: None

Victims: None

Victims: None

Victims: 9 year old male
Once the data was on the map it looked something like this:
Then I put students in groups and simply directed to try and figure out what
was causing the outbreak. After about 5 minutes or so, I asked each group
to offer their ideas about the cause.
I was looking for people to blame it on the Burger Shack and argue that the
people that lived on the other side of town would go to that other Burger
Shack and wouldn’t get sick. But I tossed the idea of a “right answer” early
and just listened to their ideas. I looked for them to provide some
understanding of the pattern and the idea that there was some sort of spatial
significance to the outbreak. I would improve on it in regards to adding
some sort of distance scale on the map. It would help if students had a
better idea of the distances. For 9th graders I think they picked up on the
pattern and the possible causes quite well.
Then I displayed Dr. John Snow’s Cholera Map and gave a quick background
on it. The students had a better understanding of Snow’s methods and the
role that fieldwork plays.
Likewise, I touched on it as an old timey version of GIS as their data served

as a layer to the map.

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Cholera Map Activity: Introduction to Geographic Fieldwork, Data, and Analysis

By Evan Sellers evansellers@gmail.com

I turned my room into a town. The student desks served as the

B1 Knight Ave, Florence, SC 29501 A1 Knight Ave, Florence, SC 29501

In addition to the addresses on the placards I listed the victims at each

I told students they needed a sheet of paper and a pencil.

Address: A1 Knight Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: A2 Knight Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: A3 Knight Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: A4 Knight Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: A5 Knight Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: A6 Knight Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: B1 Knight Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: B2 Knight Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: B3 Knight Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: B4 Knight Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: B5 Knight Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: C1 Florence St., Florence, SC 29501

Address: C2 Florence St., Florence, SC 29501

Address: C3 Florence St., Florence, SC 29501

Address: C4 Florence St., Florence, SC 29501

Address: D1 Florence St., Florence, SC 29501

Address: D2 Florence St., Florence, SC 29501

Address: D3 Florence St., Florence, SC 29501

Address: D4 Florence St., Florence, SC 29501

Address: E1 West Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: E2 West Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: E3 West Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: E4 West Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: E5 West Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: E6 West Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: F1 West Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: F2 West Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: F3 West Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: F4 West Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: F5 West Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Address: F6 West Ave., Florence, SC 29501

Likewise, I touched on it as an old timey version of GIS as their data served

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