Explanation/Analysis:

The map above displays places of activity of those who had passed during the outbreak. The Facebook posts gave quite a bit of information on the people who had died such as graduate/undergraduate, major/minor, work, home address, and extracurricular activities. A common variable within the data posted showed that many of the deaths happened to people spending time on the southeast corner of campus. Quite a bit of the information provided in the Facebook posts was excess so it was crucial to “clean” the data and find the common characteristics of the points in form of location. There were quite a few clusters surrounding the College of Education and the Frohnmayer Music Building. If a certain deceased individual passed, any critical information was plotted on the map for analysis. Blue points meant the death was recorded on the first day, green the second day, yellow the third day, orange the fourth day, and red the fifth day. The third day included quite a bit of deaths of individuals affiliated with the Music Building, and that was also the day after the Oregon Symphonic Band performed in Beall Hall. Another crucial point was that on the last day after all the building closures, there were still 15 more deaths that had occurred and after searching “Find People” on the UO website, I was able to find that from the six people’s names that were released, they were all affiliated with the Music Department. There were a few outliers in the data of individuals who had activities in other locations on campus that did not correspond with the southwest corner and this could be due to the fact that there was not enough information on their day prior to their death. Other than the outliers, there is strong evidence to show that the outbreak started in a water fountain in the Music Building.

Explanation/Analysis:

The map above displays infectious zones that the campus authorities had found as probable places where the cholera outbreak could have started. A feature that is also included in this map is a few of possible routes of those infected through the infection zones.  These polygons show the hot spots of deaths in the form of buildings and areas and potential place where cholera could thrive. The yellow polygons show the areas where there was suspicion because of the high rate of deaths surrounding those places. These areas included Fairmount neighborhood which is southeast of campus and had quite a few deaths associated with people living in the area. The wind ensemble was cancelled showing that there was a possibility of chance of infection in the music building which was shown as a yellow polygon. The building was not closed off, but it was classified as an area of suspicion. The orange polygons show the buildings that were closed off to the public on day four of the outbreak. These buildings included the Miller Theater Complex and a building located at 951 E 18th Avenue. The last color of polygons was red and those were the ones that were closed to students, professors, and the public. These buildings were closed on day five of the outbreak, and included the entire College of Education, Clinical Services Building, and the Knight Library.

There were also routes of individuals who commuted to campus from the Fairmount neighborhood and other off campus housing locations that showed how many people who had gotten infected passed through the southwest area of campus where the zones of high death rates from cholera were. There were a few deaths that had occurred on the northwest end of campus, near the theater department which I thought was interesting, but it could have been an outlier in the data because there could be a few people who go between the theater building and the music building since they are both affiliated with the performing arts. The same day that the Miller Theater Complex was closed, a building at 951 E 18th Avenue closed to the public which must be near the Music Building since its address is 961 E 18th Avenue. Either the officials made a mistake and meant 961 or it is in just close proximity to the Music Department. This information would support my prediction that the epidemic began in Frohnmayer because if the Music Building was only closed to the public, there is a strong chance that the people who would die from the disease would be professors/instructors in the music department that it was not closed to–which is what happened.