Social Explorer enjoyed two busy days at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in DC this past weekend.  About half a million science fans explored over 1,500 exhibits and activities at the event. Visitors to the American Sociological Association booth made predictions about their neighborhoods, which they compared to census data from Social Explorer tools.

Everyone from kids to high schoolers to parents to educators stopped by to test out hypotheses and learn more about sociology.

We even had a visit from a very famous printer and scientist, all the way from 18th century Philadelphia.

You can be like Ben Franklin and look up information on your own neighborhood using Social Explorer’s maps.

This weekend, science enthusiasts are taking over DC for the USA Science and Engineering Festival organized by globally renowned science event producer, Lawrence Alan Bock.

The festival aims to re-invigorate the interest of the nation’s youth in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) by producing and presenting the most compelling, exciting, educational and entertaining science gatherings in the United States.

Social Explorer will be at the American Sociological Association exhibit demonstrating demographic tools and using data to test hypotheses about the social world.

Stop by our booth to find out how well you know your neighborhood. We are at Booth 1261 in section PA-13, between Pennsylvania Avenue North and South and 13th and 14th Street.  Hope to see you there.

As the fall weather moves in, Social Explorer is looking westward to enjoy a little more of those California beaches.  Inspired by several songs about this great state, we can use Social Explorer to sing with data.

After humming along with Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” and The Beach Boys 1960s hit “California Girls” (remade by David Lee Roth in 1985), what is the state of West Coast women?

With Social Explorer, users can quickly compare maps and reports across the decades.  Looking at the female population of California for each of the three songs–Census years 1960 and 1980 and the newly released 2009 American Community Survey–we see how women are distributed around the state.

Social Explorer’s report tools enable a closer look at trends in the female population, including age, race and more.  For example, the female population in California changed from 50.1% during the Beach Boys songs to 50.7% while David Lee Roth was rocking to 49.9% as Katy Perry sang.

So, why have California women inspired such songwriting?  Are they truly “undeniable, fine, fresh and fierce?”  Are they “the cutest girls in the world?” According to the data, throughout this period, California females were a bit rarer than US women overall in numbers, making them unique, in terms of numbers.

Click the above map or the reports link for more California data dreamin.

Now that the trapped Chilean miners have all been safely rescued, Social Explorer takes a look at the mining industry here in the US.

With detailed maps and reports, Social Explorer can help trace mining over time. According to the 2000 Census, there were 496,370 miners in the US, representing just 0.4% of the over 16 employed civilian population. By comparison, the largest industries were manufacturing (14.1%), retail trade (11.7%) and health case and social assistance (11.2%).

Small in numbers nationwide, miners are heavily concentrated in certain regions of the US. In these areas, the swings in the mining population have been large. These maps show the distribution of miners in the US in 1970 and 1990—the most recent year that mining can be mapped as a separate industry (separate from agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting).

1970 United States Mining Industry

1990 United States Mining Industry

The mining industry has grown in central Nevada, while it has receded and all but disappeared in other areas of the country, such as parts of northern Michigan and Minnesota. Reports provide more detail about these shifts.  For instance, a Social Explorer report confirms that between 1990 and 2000, the mining industry in West Virginia dropped from 5.4% to 2.8% of employed residents.

Mine the data for yourself by clicking on either of the maps, or visiting the reports section of the site.

And for more on Chileans in the US, check out Social Explorer’s recent blog post in honor of Chilean Independence Day.

Social Explorer will soon have access to new religion demographics from infoGROUP’s American Church List (ACL) data.

Users will be able to examine the data at different levels of detail, and view information about every congregation in the US.

Building on Social Explorer’s 1980, 1990 and 2000 religion data, this new data will enable a more thorough and current examination of religion in the US.