Interactive infographics show data in a visual way, and make the information much more accessible for English Language Learners — and everybody else. Interactive infographics are especially engaging because they allow users to customize the data they see. You’ll find both kinds in this list.

There were so many good ones this year that I was just not able to rank them — except for the top three.

You might also be interested in The Best Interactive Infographics — 2009.

Here are my choices for The Best Infographics — 2010 (not in any order of preference):

Powering The Earth is a neat interactive infographic that shows different regions, their populations, and their carbon emissions between 1980 and 2007.

The Wall Street Journal has published a very accessible infographic titled At Work And At Play. It shows, by ethnicity, how Americans spend their work and leisure time. The data comes from the U.S. Department of Labor. The New York Times published a somewhat similar infographic last year, which I named number one on the The Best Interactive Infographics — 2009. They used a different source for their data, though. It would be interesting to compare the two.

How The Average American Spends Their Day is a series of infographics showing how the average man, woman, and teenager spends their days. It’s a simplifed version of last year’s NY Times infographic.

GOOD Magazine has published a fascinating infographic on U.S.Supreme Court confirmation hearings (and the word “fascinating” is not one used to typically describe those events) titled Supreme Questions. Here is how they describe it:

After an extensive confirmation hearing, the Senate will vote on Elena Kagan’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court this week [obviously, this came out before she was confirmed]. But what, exactly, did they talk about? A new study has looked at the questions asked to each potential justice since 1939. Mostly, they talk about inconsquential matters, but examining the questions asked over the last 70 years gives insight into the issues that have faced our country and the court.

The Shaft: How Some Companies Prey on the Poor is a nice infographic from “The Mint” highlighting the dangers of Payday Loans, Bad Credit Cards, and Rent-To-Own. I think this information in an accessible form will be particularly useful to my students.

United Nations Environment Program has created quite a few infographics on environmental issues around the world. They are designed well, and contain an enormous amount of information. Much of it would be accessible to Intemediate ELL’s.

Thisvery cool infographic in New Scientist compares the symbols used in cave paintings throughout the world.

Many infographics were published about health care reform. Here are some of the best ones:

* GOOD compared health and health care costs around the world.

* The New York Times reviewed How Different Types of People Will Be Affected by the Health Care Overhaul.

* CNN looked at How the health care bill could affect you.

* “Timeline Of The New Health Care Bill” is a nice infographic from Visual Economics.

How Americans See Europe is a funny, accurate (in the sense that I believe it reflects what many Americans believe), and very sad map showing the stereotypes that many people in the United States have about Europe.

10 Things To Know About Torture

“Education vs. Employment” is a nice infographic showing, among other things, the difference in income that may come from different levels of educational attainment.

Top World Cup Players on Facebook, Day by Day was an interactive from the New York Times highlighting which World Cup player was talked about most on Facebook on which day.

Disaster In The Gulf: Go Below The Surface Of The Gulf Oil Disaster may be the best interactive infographic on that tragedy.

“How The World Spends Its Time Online” is an accessible infographic with some interesting data.

Now, for the top three (there are actually more than three, but some are combined):

NUMBER THREE: These two infographics came from the same people: Our Amazing Planet: Top To Bottom and Infographic: Earth’s Atmosphere Top to Bottom.

NUMBER TWO: “The World’s Best Countries” is an infographic, photo gallery, and article that was published by Newsweek.

NUMBER ONE: Now, for my choice as the number one infographic in 2010: The graphic note-taking video of on Daniel Pink’s talk about his book, Drive, from RSA. You can see graphic note-taking examples from other RSA talks here. They’ve got to be seen to be believed.

In addition, I’ve got to also give a sort of number one mention to The New York Times Learning Network, which published an incredible week-long series on infographics, including how to create your own. It’s not to be missed!

(I’m adding Some Awesome Free Tools To Make Infographics, a very useful post from The Make Use Of blog)

Feedback is welcome.

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