Why I choose this element:

My data visualization map is based on household food insecurity in Canada. I choose this data set because the numbers were so shocking. As a basic introduction, household food insecurity refers to a lack of or unstable access to food owing to budgetary restrictions. It is a severe problem in Canada that has a detrimental effect on physical, emotional, and public wellbeing, and is a significant financial burden to our healthcare system.

To put it a different way, “In 2017-18, 1 in 8 households in Canada was food insecure, amounting to 4.4 million people, including more than 1.2 million children living in food-insecure households.” (Household)

However, the biggest reason I ended up choosing this data set was because of how Nunuvets percentage is so disproportionate to the rest of Canada. While the rest of Canada sits at 10-ish percent, Nunuvet sits at a whopping 57%, and after doing more research on the subject I now know why. Nunavut’s disproportionate insecurity stems from historical issues as well as its isolated location. This is caused by the many areas in Nunavut, particularly Indigenous ones, which are remote, increasing the distance that products must travel to reach families.

In 2016, the cost of food in Nunavut was up to three times higher than in the rest of Canada. More crucially, a large number of households in Nunavut have a lower income, making the increasing food expenses even more difficult.

Why this design was used:

I choose to make a map because I thought that it can best represent the percentages while still being ascetically pleasing. The glass backing was chosen for its clean, non-distracting properties. I colored each province individually, paying close attention to Nunavut. If you look at the map, Nunvet’s color is the most eye-catching red I could find, signifying the “bleeding” families.

My Process (no one asked for this but I literally spent 3 days of my life working on this project so please just let me talk about it, thanks):

The array of height was achieved via painstakingly gluing pre-cut paper one by one. I bought 6 sheets of poster paper of dollar tree and then put them through my Cricut in order to make sure each layer is even.  The height of each province was decided by the percentages listed above, ex. 12 layers for BC, and 15 for Newfoundland and Labrador.

Oh and Nunavut… Words could not begin to describe my distaste towards it. The boundless islands alone took me a whole workday to individually glue together, needless to say, it was one heck of a headache.

Overall I am really quite happy with how this project turned out:)

 

Citations:

“Food Insecurity in Nunavut: An Ongoing Issue.” Canada Without Poverty, 1 June 2021, https://cwp-csp.ca/2021/06/food-insecurity-in-nunavut-an-ongoing-issue/#:~:text=The%20disproportionate%20insecurity%20in%20Nunavut,and%20market%20food%20%5B2%5D.&text=This%20means%20Nunavut%20residents%20are%20relying%20on%20costly%20market%20food%20more%20often.