GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

Facing ethnic discrimination, China’s Uighurs and Tibetans have fallen behind as the rest of the country surges ahead

Source: www.youtube.com

This video from the Economist touches on many of the same cultural/political issues as I did in my recent article for the National Geographic Education Blog (except, obviously, this video provides a greater economic emphasis).  Ethnic tensions are always simmering tensions in the China’s westernmost province and Tibet remains culturally resistant to the program set forth by the People’s Republic of China.  

Tags: Central Asia, culture, economic, China, East Asia.

“The city of Paris will start removing padlocks from the Pont des Arts on Monday, effectively ending the tourist tradition of attaching ‘love locks’ to the bridge. For years, visitors have been attaching locks with sentimental messages to the bridge in symbolic acts of affection. Some further seal the deal by throwing keys into the Seine River below.  It was considered charming at first, but the thrill wore off as sections of fencing on the Pont des Arts crumbled under the locks’ weight. The bridge carries more than 700,000 locks with an estimated combined weight roughly the same as 20 elephants.”

Source: www.cnn.com

Graffiti, tombstones, love locks, monuments…each of these are manifestations of people’s desire to have some tangible impact on the landscape.  Something that manifests a connection to place in a profoundly personal way. 

Questions to Ponder: Why do people want leave a mark on places that are meaningful to them?  When do you think that they that these markers are appropriate or inappropriate?  Do we have more of a ‘right’ to mark some places than others? Why do many oppose these personal marks on the landscape? 

Tags: place, culture, landscape, Paris, tourism.

History (and sometimes, unfortunately, current events) shows us just how easily national borders can change, but we still like to think that they are permanent fixtures. These photos of different national borders around the world show you how both friendly and hostile nations like to fence off their turf.

Source: www.boredpanda.com

Borders can make for some striking manifestations of power on the landscape.  On the other hand as seen in this picture of Slovakia, Austria and Hungary, friendship and cooperation can also be inscribed into the landscape.  There are some great teaching images in this gallery. 

Tags: border, political, territoriality, sovereignty,  images, land use, landscape.

“Nowhere else in Cincinnati is contrast more evident than this one block of Republic Street. Rich and poor. Black and white. Dark past and vibrant future.” 

Source: www.cincinnati.com

The Over-The-Rhine neighborhood is very close to the APHG reading site, and the urban renewal here is quite controversial.  Many point to the economic positives and infusion of investments, while other see social displacement of the poor. 

Tags: neighborhood, landscape, gentrification, urban, place, culture, economic, APHG, Cincinnati. 

NASA Commentator Dan Huot talks with David Hornyak, the project manager of the High Definition Earth Viewing experiment, about the first year of the project’s operation and screens some of its memorable scenes. From a perch on the nadir side of the International Space Station’s Columbus module, HDEV’s four high definition off-the-shelf video cameras have been transmitting clear, sharp views of Earth from an altitude of 250 miles, providing impressive views while testing how the hardware holds up in the harsh environment of Earth orbit.

Source: www.youtube.com

If you are impatient, the ‘highlight reel’ of this high definition video begins at 3:50 in this clip (but understanding the ‘behind-the-scenes’ context helps to understand how we get these videos of our planet). 

Tags: mapping, perspective, images, remote sensing, geospatial, unit 1 Geoprinciples.

“At least 800 people have died in a major heatwave that has swept across India, melting roads in New Delhi as temperatures neared 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit).  Hospitals are on alert to treat victims of heatstroke and authorities advised people to stay indoors with no end in sight to the searing conditions.  In the worst-hit state of Andhra Pradesh, in the south, 551 people have died in the past week as temperatures hit 47 degrees Celsius on Monday.” 

Tags: physical, weather and climate, India, South Asia.

Source: www.msn.com

This article on MSN and this NPR podcast remind me about how extremes can create chaos.  While in Texas, the flooding has ravaged much of the state.  Weather from other places is never news unless it is so extreme that it becomes a crisis.   

Pamela Ronald studies the genes that make plants more resistant to disease and stress. In an eye-opening talk, she describes her decade-long quest to help create a variety of rice that can survive prolonged flooding. She shows how the genetic improvement of seeds saved the Hawaiian papaya crop in the 1950s — and makes the case that it may simply be the most effective way to enhance food security for our planet’s growing population.

Tags: GMOs, technology, agriculture.

Source: www.youtube.com

“Explore public data through Google’s visualization tools.” 

Source: www.google.com

One exercise that I do in many of my classes is based on this data and and outline map.  I have the students map out the Human Development Index data for Central America (full global dataset here) on an outline map of the region.   

Questions to Ponder: How might we be able to infer about migration within the region?  Foreign investment?  Political stability? 

Tags: Middle America, development, statistics, economic, mapping.