GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

I’ve had the privilege of working with NEGEN (New England Geography Education Network). The great people in the Massachusetts Geographic Alliance have collaborated to create a template to run Family Geography Nights at schools. These Family Nights are incredibly successful in showing the relevance of geography education to administrators, other teachers, parents and the general public.

This hour-long podcast addresses some has key issues in urban geography by exploring the history of redlining, the Fair Housing Act and other fair housing initiatives.  The urban cultural mosaic of the United States and the neighborhoods of our cities have been greatly shaped by these issues.  Currently gentrification is reshaping many U.S. cities and fits into the wider scope of the issues raised in the podcast. 

Tags: housing, racism, urban, economic, poverty, place, socioeconomic, neighborhood, ethnicity, race, podcast.

Yes, the news about Detroit has been grim, as de-industrialization has negatively impacted this region more than any other in the United States.  Still, many consider Detroit’s economic problems akin to flesh wounds and organ failure.  Extending the analogy, the see Detroit as having ‘good bones,’ something to build on for a new future.  This article represents some visions of that new future.  

Tags: urban, economic, industry, Detroit.

I’m from California, and yes, this is a freeway.  This fun 4 minute video highlights some previously shared language maps.  

TV shows have regionalized networks, but sometimes the audience wants something beyond their local borders and that pushes the limits of what many think that audience might want or even redefine the audience itself.  Hijab-wearing rappers and blond-haired, blue-eyed girls from Boston singing in Arabic certainly blur the distinction between what we think is Middle Eastern and what think of as American.  Globalization is increasing erasing those cultural lines.

Population growth in an important topic that is connected to economic development.  If you’ve seen Hans Roslings TED talks, this is an hour-long version of many of the same concepts and data visualizations.  His Gapminder data visualization tool, it is a must see for geography teachers to show the connections between population statistics and developmental patterns–let students see the data. 

This is an article that looks at a different factor, arguing that overpopulation isn’t the real issue.   

Tags: gapminder, population, demographic transition model, development.

One of my favorite combinations of maps for Thanksgiving involves the geography of food production and food consumption.  When we start looking at the regional dishes on Thanksgiving plates we can see some great patterns.  This ESRI storymap asks the simple question, where did your Thanksgiving Dinner come From?

This StoryMap is a great resource to combine with this New York Times article that shows the regional preferences for the most popular Thanksgiving recipes.  Where are sweet potatoes grown?  Where do people make sweet potato pie for Thanksgiving? 

Plymouth County, MA is heart of only 3 cranberry producing regions and is was also home to the first Thanksgiving.  How has this New England local ecology and traditional food patterns influenced national traditions? 

For these and more Thanksgiving resources on scoop.it, click here.