The 2010 US Census will provide us with valuable data that can be used for a variety of academic purposes. For that data to be collected the Census must be completed. To track the collection of Census data Google has created a layer for Google Earth in which you can view completion rates by county. The file uses time-stamps to show updates to the completion rates. You can view the layer here in your browser or download it here. Watch the video below for an overview of the layer.

Applications for Education
This Google Earth layer presents teachers with an opportunity to visually show students how much farther their local areas have to go in order to fully complete the Census. In a Civics class you could show students this data then challenge them to create their own campaigns to get people in their communities to complete the Census. Students could create a video or a multimedia collage (try Glogster) to encourage people to complete the Census form.