My husband never met a map he didn’t like. His love for maps is apparently wearing off on me since this is the second one I’ve posted this week.

This map of the 2010 U.S. Census shows each state and the population changes in each state. Plus there’s a cool “hover over your map” feature that is pretty nifty. You can even see population changes in your county.

A few days ago, I talked about how the world/the Mideast is changing so quickly. This map shows how quickly the population is changing where you and I, and our kids, live.

As we are learning in our Sticky Faith Learning Cohort from Dr. Scott Cormode, change often brings a sense of loss. Some questions emerge from this map that you might have a chance to discuss with kids:

-What do you think/feel about the population changes in our state or county?

-How does this match, or not, what you are seeing at school or in our own neighborhood?

-What is happening to your own ethnicity? Why do you think that is

-What’s good about that? What’s hard about that?

-What ministry opportunities might open up for us based on these changes?

I’m a big believer in talking about ethnicity and race with kids, and doing so openly. In our own family, we talk about our and other folks’ race as openly as we would talk about their gender. This Census gives us a great open door to talk about race with kids.