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GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

Supporting geography educators everywhere with current digital resources.

Month

March 2015

These Amazing Maps Show the True Diversity of Africa

“African countries are also quite diverse from an ethnic standpoint. As the Washington Post’s Max Fisher noted back in 2013, the world’s 20 most ethnically diverse countries are all African, partially because European colonial powers divvied up sections of the continent with little regard for how the residents would have organized the land themselves. This map above shows Africa’s ethnographic regions as identified by George Murdock in his 1959 ethnography of the continent.”

Tags: Africacolonialism, borders, political, language, ethnicity.

Source: mic.com

Why the side-hustle is key to Nigeria’s economy

Nkem Ifejika meets with Nigerian entrepreneurs who show how the nation’s economy is finding lubricants other than oil.

Source: soundcloud.com

The shadow economy, the black market or the side-hustle; these are all names for the informal sector of the economy.  In many countries such as Nigeria, this is a way of making money outside their normal jobs to boost their income and try to rise above just getting by.  “It was my grandmother who taught my mum that if you were lucky enough to have a salaried job, that was just pocket money. The real money came from your five to nine.”  If working 9-to-5 represents the formal economy, this BBC podcast (and accompanying article) are all about the 5-to-9 economy. 

Tags: economic, laborNigeria, podcast

Pun-Fueled Food Maps

U.S. Map + Haha + Yum = Foodnited States of America

Source: news.distractify.com

What can I say?  Horrible puns, crafty maps and gorgeous food presentations…how could I not share this?  You can follow the progress of this on-going project as they add more beautifully silly food map puns to their series under the hashtag #foodnitedstates on Foodiggity’s Instagram account.

Tagsart, mapping, food, fun.

Colombia: from failed state to Latin American powerhouse

In the shadow of a violent and drug-fuelled past, business confidence is growing in Colombia, a country that has been transformed over the past decade

TagsSouth America, Colombia, development, economic.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Our Blessed Homeland


Source: www.thepoke.co.uk

One of the main reasons I wrote this article for National Geographic about how to teach cultural empathy is nicely conveyed in the cartoon above–in spite of our cultural differences, I want people to see themselves in others.  This is reminiscent to this New Yorker cartoon on the why there should not be religious conflicts in the world.  


Tags: conflictracismreligion, perspective.

WWII ‘Mapping Maidens’ Chart Course for Today’s Mapmakers

“As the demand for its products escalated early in World War II, the Army Map Service, a heritage organization of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, was losing much of its largely male workforce to the armed forces. A solution to the urgent need for replacements emerged when the University of Chicago’s Geography Department developed a course in military map making and began offering it to women’s colleges in the East and Midwest.”

Women in science are awesome and we need to encourage girls in STEM disciplines, especially geospatial technologies…hearing this story of women in the past might help to inspire a future generation. 

Tags: mapping, cartographywar, gender, STEM, geospatial.

City Centers Are Doing Better than Inner Suburbs

A new report tracks demographic trends across 66 U.S. metro areas.  The report provides comprehensive evidence for Aaron Renn’s “new donut” model of cities (pictured in above image, on the right). Renn’s model proposes that city centers and outer-ring suburbs are doing well economically, but inner-ring suburbs are struggling with a new influx of poverty.”

Tags: urban, economic, urban models, APHG.

Source: www.citylab.com

India-Pakistan border Ceremony

Fascinating footage of a traditional ceremony that takes place on the Pakistan India border. From the BBC

Source: www.youtube.com

This is a fascinating political display that shows a degree of cooperation, but is made into a sports-like event because of the geopolitical tension/passion between these two South Asian neighbors.  They have ‘toned down‘ the overtly display of hostility in recent years.  Some love this border ceremony and others fear that they are playing with fire, fanning the flames of nationalism that only exacerbates the tension.  Just last year, this border checkpoint was the site of a terrorist attack that killed 50.  Click here for more information about the border tension in the Pakistan/India/China borderland.

 

Tags: bordersgeopolitics, political, territoriality, video, India, South Asia, Pakistan.

Volcanic Eruption

WebCams de Mexico archives the best of webcam videos in Mexico.”

Source: www.youtube.com

What does a volcanic eruption look like?  Just like this. 


Tags: disastersMexico, physical, volcano.

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