VIDEO
VIDEO
Storytelling Through Infographics: Kelsey Taylor
Storytelling Through Infographics: Kelsey Taylor
Kelsey Taylor, is a geographer and a cartographer, and 2019 National Geographic grantee. Through her grant, she is documenting changes in National Parks over the last 200 years and will develop maps and infographics that will help visualize changes.
Grades
5 - 12+
Subjects
Conservation, Geography, Human Geography, Physical Geography, Professional Learning, Storytelling
Kelsey Taylor uses infographics as a way to communicate data and information by creating a story that delivers a message or a call to action. As a child, she played a lot of games. She was particularly interested in games where she could explore the world on a map. She was also interested in design. In 2019, Kelsey was awarded a National Geographic grant which will give her the opportunity to visit several U.S. National Parks and study how they’ve been changing over the last 200 years. Because these parks are protected areas, they should be mostly unaffected. Sadly, we know that this is not true. With the grant, she hopes to use her skills in geography and cartography to create data-driven visuals that show how climate changeis affecting these protected areas.
This video was developed in partnership with Adobe, as part of a series of courses called Storytelling for Impact.
Transcript (English)
- Data, information, and a story. Three totally different things. Data, is what you get completely raw. Information is you take that and you process it and you see some patterns. And then story is how you'd weave it into a narrative. My name is Kelsey Taylor. I'm a geographer and a cartographer.
Infographics can tell a powerful story by taking data and making it information. That's what they're there for, but they can communicate it in a way that people can understand, and I think that's something that's really powerful.
People learn in different ways. I personally am a visual learner. Some things that I've seen have stuck with me longer than things I've heard or that I've read.
I've always played a lot of games where you would like explore the world on a map by trying to find something or find someone. Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego was one that I played a lot when I was younger. My family like didn't travel much when I was younger, so it was nice to be able to like go to all these places that I never really went. I don't remember ever catching her unfortunately. But that combined with my interest in design and geography I think sort of led me into cartography. I just took one class in grad school and then it kind of clicked for me that this is something I was interested in and good at.
I am passionate about biking. So, my Biking in DC infographic was created for my cartography and geo visualization class in grad school showing where bike crashes happen in DC. You see trends in certain areas. An infographic component that looked like a bike and had pie charts for the wheels and then bar charts where you would have like a rack on the back of the bike and then a little narrative. On the day of the presentation, it was like a little rainy and I crashed my bike, so I got to school and like my pants had ripped and then I had to give my presentation and my class was like a little horrified that I had been in a crash. My professor was very encouraged by my presentation, but told the rest of the class like don't get so invested, which is probably for the best. Yeah, it was like a statistic that would've ended up on my map, if I had done it like a little bit later. It was just a project I did for a class, but it was something that I was passionate about and really was the first big infographic that I worked on and kind of like solidified my interest in cartography and infographics.
My National Parks project that I have a grant for from National Geographic is to travel to a number of national parks in the US and I'm mapping them to sort of work on this story and communicate climate change in a way that I haven't really seen done so far. National parks are great, because they're sort of a controlled environment. They're supposed to be protected. Things like wildfires don't stop at park boundaries. I think with climate change it's been really hard to get the whole picture and so, oftentimes what I see is that scientists put out one single variable at a time. So, you'll see a global map of like sea level, temperature, or sea level rise, which is for like a lay person, not very relatable. What does that mean? How does that impact me and my life? So, what this project is doing is mapping these parks. Different types of data, so we see like fires, we see hurricanes, glacial retreat. We see all different types of indicators of climate change mapped together across different geographies to show that this isn't just one type of change, it's all different types of things happening in the parks.
I think using infographics here will be really helpful for people who are skeptical of climate change, or maybe are resistant to the idea, or even those who just don't understand it. And for this project, using an infographic to present something in a way that's relatable. So, it's not like a global problem. For them, it could be regional, it could be local. It's all of these things. I think my goal as a storyteller is to tell a story in a different way that we haven't seen before or to show a different perspective that you haven't heard before. I think some people can be perceived as being ignorant towards something like climate change, but really they're just not presented with the right types of storytelling or visual examples to help them under better understand what's actually going on.
Transcripción (Español)
- Datos, información y una historia. Tres cosas totalmente diferentes. Los datos es lo que obtienes de forma totalmente bruta. La información es lo que obtienes cuando procesas eso y ves algunos patrones. Y luego la historia es cómo tejes eso en una narrativa. Mi nombre es Kelsey Taylor. Soy geógrafa y cartógrafa.
Las infografías pueden contar una historia poderosa al tomar datos y convertirlos en información. Para eso están, pero pueden comunicarlo de una manera que la gente puede entender, y creo que eso es algo realmente poderoso.
Las personas aprenden de diferentes maneras. Personalmente, yo aprendo visualmente. Algunas cosas que he visto se han quedado conmigo más tiempo que las cosas que he escuchado o que he leído.
Siempre he jugado muchos juegos donde exploraba el mundo en un mapa intentando encontrar algo o a alguien. ¿Dónde en el mundo está Carmen Sandiego? fue uno al que jugué mucho cuando era más pequeña. Mi familia no viajaba mucho cuando era más pequeña, así que era agradable poder ir a todos estos lugares a los que nunca realmente fui. Desafortunadamente no recuerdo haberla atrapado. Pero eso combinado con mi interés en diseño y geografía creo que me llevó a la cartografía. Solo tomé una clase en la escuela de posgrado y luego todo cobró sentido para mí que esto era algo en lo que estaba interesada y en lo que era buena.
Me apasiona el ciclismo. Así que mi infografía de Ciclismo en DC fue creada para mi clase de cartografía y visualización geográfica en la escuela de posgrado mostrando dónde ocurren los accidentes de bicicleta en DC. Tendencias de la UC en ciertas áreas. Un componente de la infografía que parecía una bicicleta y tenía gráficos circulares para las ruedas y luego gráficos de barras donde había como un portaequipajes en la parte trasera de la bicicleta y luego una pequeña narrativa. El día de la presentación, estaba un poco lluvioso y choqué mi bicicleta, llegué a la escuela y mis pantalones se habían rasgado y luego tuve que dar mi presentación y mi clase estaba un poco horrorizada de que había tenido un accidente. Mi profesor estaba muy animado por mi presentación, pero le dijo al resto de la clase como que no se entusiasmen tanto, lo cual probablemente fue lo mejor. Sí, era como una estadística que habría terminado en mi mapa si la hubiera hecho un poco más tarde. Solo era un proyecto que hice para una clase, pero era algo que me apasionaba y realmente fue la primera gran infografía en la que trabajé y de alguna manera solidificó mi interés en la cartografía e infografías.
Mi proyecto de Parques Nacionales para el cual tengo una beca de National Geographic es para viajar a varios parques nacionales en los EE. UU. y los estoy mapeando para trabajar en esta historia y comunicar el cambio climático de una manera que no he visto que se haya hecho hasta ahora. Los parques nacionales son geniales, porque son una especie de ambiente controlado. Se supone que deben estar protegidos. Cosas como los incendios forestales no se detienen en los límites del parque. Creo que con el cambio climático ha sido realmente difícil obtener una visión completa y por lo tanto, a menudo lo que veo es que los científicos presentan una sola variable a la vez. Entonces, ves un mapa global de cosas como el nivel del mar, la temperatura, o el aumento del nivel del mar, lo cual para una persona común no es algo inmediato. ¿Qué significa eso? ¿Cómo afecta eso a mi vida y a mí? Entonces, lo que este proyecto hace es mapear estos parques. Diferentes tipos de datos, así que vemos como incendios, vemos huracanes, retroceso glaciar. Vemos todo tipo de indicadores del cambio climático mapeados juntos a través de diferentes geografías para mostrar que esto no es solo un tipo de cambio, son todo tipo de cosas que suceden en los parques.
Creo que el uso de infografías aquí será realmente útil para las personas que son escépticas del cambio climático, o tal vez son resistentes a la idea, o incluso aquellos que simplemente no lo entienden. Y para este proyecto, utilizar una infografía para presentar algo de una manera que sea cercana. Entonces, no es como un problema global. Para ellos, podría ser regional, podría ser local. Son todas estas cosas. Creo que mi objetivo como narradora es contar una historia de una manera diferente que no hemos visto antes o mostrar una perspectiva diferente que no has escuchado antes. Creo que algunas personas pueden ser percibidas como ignorantes hacia algo como el cambio climático, pero realmente solo no se les presenta con los tipos correctos de narración o ejemplos visuales para ayudarles a entender mejor lo que realmente está sucediendo.
Credits
Media Credits
The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.
other
Last Updated
April 12, 2024
User Permissions
For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.
Media
If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media.
Text
Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service.
Interactives
Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives.