GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

Located near the border with Sudan (see in Google Maps), Ethiopia plans to dam the Blue Nile before the water heads to Sudan and eventually into Egypt.  As stated in this BBC article (with a nice 1-minute video clip), Egypt and Sudan currently get the majority of the Nile’s waters because of colonial-era treaties and Egypt is opposed to Ethiopia’s plan, fearing their water supply with be threatened. 

Tags: Ethiopia, Africa, development. environment, water, environment modify, energy, borders, political.

I originally found this hands-on activity on Maps 101 wanted to make my own.   This is a fun way to make latitude more meaningful and memorable.  All the documents you need to recreate this, and to have your students make their own are available here. 

I’ve conducted research in Mexico City, and am endlessly fascinated but this urban amalgamation.  The city is so extensive that there are numerous morphological patterns that can be seen in the city, including the 12 listed in the article.  

Tags: Mexico, density, sustainability, housing, urban, planning, unit 7 cities. 

Questions to Ponder: Why is Australia’s population so highly clustered?  What is it about the yellow (and white) areas that explain this pattern?  How does this map of rainfall add to our understanding? What other layers of information do we need to properly contextualize this information?   

Tags: Australia, Oceania, population, density.

Often we treat countries as solid areas and miss many regional patterns; in part because we view global data sets that are at that scale. 

Questions to ponder: what regional patterns do you see?  What accounts for these patterns?  What do you think other countries would look like with data at this scale?    

Tags: mapping, regions, census, development, USA.

People experience place and public spaces in very distinct ways–gender plays a crucial role in how we socially navigate in and through space.  This article about how women can address street harassment goes well with this additional article that tackles the problems with a society that normalizes street harassment. 

Tags: space, gender, place.

International relations and global politics are what people often think are critical for foreign policy and diplomacy.  A geographic and historically nuanced understanding of various cultures can be invaluable–and what more enjoyable way to learn that over an amazing meal?   

Tags: food, political, culture.

We often view global affairs through our own little prism, considering how it affects us.  So much of the discussion has revolved around Russia and the West in general (and the U.S. specifically), that Ukraine almost gets lost in the shuffle.  All this amid news that the acting Ukrainian Foreign Minister has said that the possibility of war “is growing.”

Tag: Ukraine, political, conflict, devolution.