GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

I’ve written in the past about the aesthetics of the an ideal British landscape (as embodied in the anthem Jerusalem).  The British ideal was to tame nature; the Canadians on the other hand, embraced the wildness of the natural landscape.  Those difference normative views of landscape helped to shape national identity and inform land use decision-making processes.     

It is now Geography Awareness Week!  Geography isn’t just something to study, it’s something to do.  Make geography active and engaging.  Here are some resources that we are using in Rhode Island for #GeoWeek.  What is your local Geographic Alliance doing?  If you don’t know, now is a great time to join. 

This is fascinating…just because a technology is old and outdated in modern society doesn’t mean it wasn’t ingenious.  The original mathmeticans who calcuated angles and distances study geometry so they could navigate and ‘measure the Earth.’ These giant arrows are but one of those links in the geneological strands of navigational technology.    

Usually we think about levels of development at the national scale and compare 1 country to another.  However, there is great unevenness in development markers within a country and this mapping tool helps us visualize those uneven patterns. 

There are other secessionist movements, and other ways the states might have formed, but these are all very unlikely.  There’s that little document called the Constitution that makes these movements impractical.  

Geography Awareness Week is right around the corner (Nov. 18-22)!  The Theme is GEOGRAPHY AND THE NEW AGE OF EXPLORATION.  Here are some resources that we are using in Rhode Island.  What is your local Geographic Alliance doing?  If you don’t know, now is a great time to join.  

Typhoon Haiyan was enormous and hit a 400-mile swath on the Philippines.  The Philippines is a single country, but it is composed of over 7,000 islands; hundreds of islands are in need of relief aid, if not more.  The islands are in an archipelago which naturally fragments the land mass and isolates the residents making transportation, utilities and communications logistically difficult even in the best of times.  If the first few days after the typhoon, supply chains were cut off and many desperate people looted the sparse food resources available. The necessities to sustain life—food, water, shelter, medication and basic sanitation—are the all major concerns in the aftermath of the typhoon.      

While the police are saying that order is being restored, the effects of flooding pollute water resources and increase the spread of infectious diseases because of the poor sanitation.  The Philippines is gripping for an impending medical crisis from the spread of diseases in addition to the medical trauma that people suffered during the actual typhoon.  Richard Brennen of the World Health Organization (WHO) believes that these geographic difficulties make the relief efforts in the Philippines more difficult than the 2010 relief efforts to help Haiti after the massive earthquake.   

Tags: water, disasters, Philippines, medical, development, diffusion.