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Jack’s Shipwreck Project

Introduction

This dataset is a collection of data on shipwrecks in the Great Lakes.  My project proposal is to complete a Tableau map and data analysis of the wrecks in Lake Ontario.  So far, there are 313 wrecks in the dataset for Lake Ontario, with data on each along 76 different columns of information.  Currently, I am data cleaning rows to update the information and add in LAT/LON information for mapping, there are about 20 rows left to clean.  Along the way, more wrecks might yet be added to the Lake Ontario dataset as I consult updates to sources.  I have already had to take out some wrecks that were erroneously recorded as in Lake Ontario, but which actually occurred elsewhere (F. A. Georger)…

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One Comment

  • Maeve Kane

    If you think you’re done as is, you need to shift your goal posts and expand the project–more specific analysis of certain items, more detailed walk through, additional context on specific wrecks that highlight major points of analysis, etc. You also keep saying that you’re just doing Lake Ontario–do you have wrecks in the other lakes? Even if you don’t feel that you have all the wrecks, you can still map them and compare against Ontario, which might give you a different perspective on eg the 1880s spike.

    We’ve spoken about this briefly in class, but you need a plan to anonymize the locations of the wrecks that may have human remains before I will ok the posting of this project. Publishing the exact locations of places that may have human remains has big ethical and legal ramifications, so you need to have a plan in place that you and I discuss before this goes up online.

    Keep in mind also that you need to have an argument for this project, and one that goes beyond confirming or contradicting anecdata like the 1880s spike. The final project needs to be something beyond displaying data for the public–even a public history project needs to have an interpretive focus that analyzes and argues.