Go to www.gapminder.org. You can use the chart online by clicking on the Gapminder World tab or you can download it here: http://www.gapminder.org/world-offline/. Take a quick look at the guide and explore the data: http://www.gapminder.org/GapminderMedia/wp-uploads/tutorial/Gapminder_World_Guide.pdf to understand how the graph works before advancing to the assignment questions.
Your assignment is to answer the five (5) questions below using the data found on the Gapminder chart. Your answers should be concise, written in an academically appropriate style with good grammar and spelling.
1) Describe one interesting observation you made while exploring the data.
2) Examine the variables child mortality and children per woman. Describe the relationship between these two variables. Do you notice anything surprising or interesting?
3) Change the x-axis back to GDP. Turn your attention to the countries from Sub-Saharan Africa (they should be in blue). Do you notice a particular country that has much lower child mortality compared to the others? Select this country and another that has a similar GDP but much higher child mortality. Looking at other variables, can you find a possible explanation for such a huge difference despite similar GDPs?
4) Now use the time function to observe the changes in life expectancy over time for all countries. The life expectancy for many countries takes a dive at what year? Why might this be the case?
5) What can you discover about the relationship between GDP and health when you change the GDP scale from log to lin. You will notice that the data points move, but why does this happen?