GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

This is the coolest Junior High geospatial technologies project ever.  This actually recorded some nice remotely sensed images.  You can actually do something similar yourself with this balloon kit.  You can read about some successful attempts to do this with geography students and colleagues from @AndrewShears which can be seen here and another by @bricker that is worth looking at here.    

Tags: remote sensing, images, geospatial, edtech, geography education, unit 1 GeoPrinciples.

What does a state need to have to be politically viable?  If you were to start your own country, what would you need to do?  This isn’t just a hypothetical question since South Sudan is currently undergoing this process and having to answer these questions. 

Tags: South Sudan, political, sovereignty, Africa, territoriality, states, unit 4 political.

Cartels are still fighting each other, but they are no longer taunting the military and the police by doing it in such a blatantly public manner.  Drug-related homicides are stable (and alarmingly high) at 12,000 per year but less in the border cities and more in the northern interior.  The cartels are trying to avoid engaging the military, seeing that “spectacular acts of violence only bring more pressure to bear on them.”  

Tags: Mexico, narcotics, conflict.

This is a great way to visualizing global migration patterns.  Where are people migrating to Brazil coming from?  What countries are Brazilians migrating to?  Here are the answers to these types of questions for every country.  

Tags: migration, population, statistics, visualization, unit 2 population.

This video explains why geography teachers should be interested in Latitude News given it’s desire to show how global stories have regional impacts.  They often have interesting perspectives on global stories that makes the geographic linkages explicit.  They are currently raising funds to expand their reach.   

I’ve got nothing but love for the good people of Alabama, but this spoof from the Onion is great.

As a cultural production this is fascinating reshaping of the original Chrysler Super Bowl commercial.  The original doubles as a tribute to a rural America of yesteryear and American labor.  This one acts as a critique on the status on Latino workers in the United States.  The audio is the same, with images that conjure out entirely different messages.

Tags: agriculture, labor, rural, unit 5 agriculture, perspective.

Many Puerto Ricans have left the island as economic struggles continue to mount.  This podcast provides vivid examples of push and pull factors that lead to the individual choices of potential migrants (read the transcript or listen to the podcast).

Tags: Puerto Rico, economic, migration, podcast.