Chart assignment
Charts to read and discuss
Read each chart, then answer its questions. Every chart shows its source and date; open it for a table of the numbers and the data to download.
Chart 1 of 2 · Crime
Which big U.S. cities' murder rates fell most since 2019?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
From 2019, the year before murders jumped across the country, to 2025, the murder rate fell most in Baltimore, MD (-58.5%), Corpus Christi, TX (-56.4%) and Tulsa, OK (-54.3%) of the 70 big U.S. cities (250,000 people or more) whose police reported every month of both years to the FBI, and rose most in Portland, OR (74.8%) and Mesa, AZ (63.1%). Across the U.S. it fell 17%. Cities with fewer than 10 murders in 2019 are left out, as are departments that missed a month of either year (for 2019 and 2025 these include Philadelphia, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Miami and New Orleans). Each rate is per person the department serves.
Questions to discuss
- In one sentence of your own, what does this chart show?
- Find the biggest change or difference in the chart. What might explain it?
- Who collected these numbers, and how recent are they? What else would you want to know before drawing a conclusion?
Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, Uniform Crime Reporting Program (Public domain (U.S. government work); source FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program) · Data as of Dec 31, 2025
Open the chart and its numbersChart 2 of 2 · Health
How long do Americans live, and how has that changed since 1900?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
A baby born in the US in 2018 could expect to live 78.7 years, up from 47.3 in 1900. The sharpest drop was in 1918, to 39.1 years, during the influenza pandemic. This CDC dataset stops at 2018; later NCHS reports put life expectancy at 78.4 years in 2023 and 79.0 in 2024, after a fall during the COVID-19 pandemic.
How to read this chart
Each point is how long a baby born in that year could expect to live, if death rates stayed as they were that year. It is an average, so it is pulled down a lot when many babies and young people die. Hover or tap a point to read its year and value.
Questions to discuss
- Find the sharpest drop on the chart. What happened in the world that year?
- Life expectancy in 1900 was under 50. Does that mean most adults died in their 40s? What else could lower the average?
- What changes in medicine, food or public health could explain the long rise?
Source: CDC National Center for Health Statistics, Death rates and life expectancy at birth (Public domain (U.S. government work)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2018
Open the chart and its numbersTeachers: make your own chart assignment, or change this one. Free, no account needed.