In-class Exercises

Part 2: Finding Data

For this exercise, you will be part of a group. Each group will work with a different dataset:

• Group 1: NYC Street Centerline
• Group 2: 311 Service Requests
• Group 3: MapPLUTO (this page contains numerous datasets, so scroll down to the MapPLUTO heading)

1. Once you are in your group, open the link above to your group's data. For this exercise, you do not need to download the data.
2. Look at the page for the data.
3. Look at the metadata for the data. On NYC OpenData, you may need to click the About button to find this. There will often be a PDF or Excel file containing the metadata or a "data dictionary".
4. As a group, try to answer the following:
   • What does this dataset represent?
   • What might you use it for?
   • Pick an attribute in the data that is described in the metadata or data dictionary. What does it represent? What types of values does it contain (text, date, number, etc)?