GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

The term “LULU” for city planners stands for local unwanted land use.  LULUs are necessary (prisons, landfills etc.) to the society at large but nobody wants to be close to the negative and undesirable aspects they bring to a community (“NIMBY”-not in my backyard).  Consequently, LULUs are usually concentrated in poorer neighborhoods with limited political capital and disproportionately bear the localized burdens of these sites.  Inspired by the urban transformations in Curitiba Brazil (see this TED talk from Jaime Lerner of Curitiba discussing sustainable urbanism), this is a great example of how an urban renewal project that was able to mitigate the negatives and even make a LULU a positive for a community. 

As one analyst quoted in this article says, the whole point of China’s policy is to try to create an environment where the people are Taiwan want to be unified with mainland China.  China has opened up economically towards Taiwan to foster this in “an offer they can’t refuse.” What would your position on this issue be if you were advising China, Taiwan or the United States?  

My grandparents bought me my first globe and subscription to National Geographic when the sensed an insatiable desire in me to explore strange places.  They subsequently took me to Yellowstone (Grand Prismatic Spring pictured above) and many other landmarks of in the West.  These sights still fills me with wonder; this fantastic list gives you the ability to digitally explore strange and exotic places.  There are some real teaching gems in the the list for both physical and human geography.  

Happy Valentines Day!  I decided to compiles some heart-shaped landforms from a Google search.  Like love, some were artificially manufactured and others were purely natural.  If you don’t want cutesy heart pictures but prefer a sociological critique of Valentines Day, this is for you.   

The top 3 shouldn’t come as any big surprises, but there might be a few farther on down the list though that might raise some eyebrows.  There are specific geopolitical, historic, economic and cultural rationales for each of these countries that explain why they are on this list, and discussing those reasons is a conversation would having. 

I mentioned this before, but it is worth repeating.  As the international spotlight in on Sochi, our students interest in the region is also heightened.  This makes it the perfect time to shine a light on parts of history that many have conveniently tried to brush aside. 

Tags: Russia. historical, colonialism.

This article is an excellent explanation of the geopolitical significance of holding the Olympic Games in Sochi.  Additionally, here is a link from Stratfor discussing the shifting foreign policy concerns of the United States towards and in Russia. 

Tags: sport, political, conflict, devolution, Russia.

What would the Great Lakes region look like if the lakes were drained?  This visualization is a tremendous exploration into hypothetical geographies. This video has been added to the the interactive map, Place-Based Geography Videos.

Tags: physical, environment, water, visualization.