Seth Dixon, Ph.D.‘s insight:
Map lovers wanting to customize your phone cover, this is for you. Read the full blog post here from maps.com.
See on www.youtube.com
Facebook intern Paul Butler has created a detailed map of the world by mapping connections between people using the social network living in different cities.
Seth Dixon, Ph.D.‘s insight:
The disconnected portions of the this map tell us as much about the world we live in as the highly illuminated ones. Might this be a version of the “Black Marble” image that would reasonate more with today’s teenagers? For the methods behind the creation of this map as well as a high resolution version of the map, see this post.
Tags: social media, map, visualization, cartography.
See on www.bbc.co.uk
Seth Dixon, Ph.D.‘s insight:
I love this visualization of New York City’s evolving skyline from 1876-2013. The urban landscape of America’s prominent cities has changed dramatically.
Tags: historical,urban, architecture, landscape, NYC.
See on twitter.com
Ezekiel “Ziggy” Ansah’s journey to the NFL, beginning as a walk-on to the Brigham Young University football team from Accra, Ghana, who had never played foot…
Seth Dixon, Ph.D.‘s insight:
Ezekiel loved playing soccer and never played American football until he was in his 20’s; that is NOT a typical path to the NFL. Ziggy’s life represents the geography of opportunity. If he had grown up in the United States, a boy with his physical abilities would have been funneled into football leagues at an early age. If he lived his whole life in Africa, he would never become a millionaire (probably not anyway). However, global diffusion of religious ideas brought LDS missionaries to his home in Ghana; enhanced migrational opportunities took him to Utah and all of these geographic factors (combined with his personal skills and ambition) helped him the fifth overall selection in the NFL Draft and a member of the Detroit Lions.
It makes be wonder if the greatest physical talent for a sport always gets the opportunity. I’m sure some kids in tropical countries have the physical tools to be fantastic hockey players, but without access to participation at an early age because of the cultural preferences of the area (although with hockey you could argue it’s also climatically determined), they are geographically constrained to a different set of possibilities for their lives. Read here for more on Ziggy.
See on www.youtube.com
When Anum Hussain heard about the Boston Marathon bombing, she immediately panicked, worried that the culprits would be like her. The 22-year-old Muslim was in the offices of Hubspot, the Cambridge marketing-software company she works for.
Seth Dixon, Ph.D.‘s insight:
See on gawker.com
I have announced the AP Human Geography Graduate Certificate Program several times and have to admit it is for both personal and professional reasons. I will be the one teaching the first course in the sequence that is designed for teachers relatively new to AP Human Geography. I would appreciate it if you could spread the word far and wide. I know this is a busy time of year but their isn’t much time left to still enroll in the courses (registration ends May 1st, and classes start in June).
See on geographyeducationdotorg.files.wordpress.com
“Geographer Reece Jones discusses his recent book Border Walls, examining the history of how and why societies have chosen to literally wall themselves apart. He gives a brief history of political maps, how international lines reshape landscapes, and how the trend towards increased border wall construction contrasts with the view of a “borderless” world under globalization.”
Seth Dixon, Ph.D.‘s insight:
This 30-minute audio podcast is a great preview of Reece Jones’ book Border Walls; and discusses many concepts important to political geography. The physical construction of barriers is an old practice (Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Wall), but those borders were the exceptions. The recent proliferatrion of walls to separate countries is dramatically reshaping our borders and impacting economics, politics, migration and other geographic patterns (How recent? Over half of the borders with walls and fences we see today have been constructed since 2000). Although walls are often justified as a means to prevent terrorism, but most of the world’s walls can best be explained as dividing wealthy and relatively poorer countries (download podcast episode here). You can also read his New York Times article on the same topic.
Tags: book reviews, podcast, borders, political, landscape, states, territoriality, sovereignty.
See on www.stanford.edu
Laxmi’s story of being kidnapped and trafficked in Nepal is not an isolated case but, as this graphical account shows, things are not always what they seem.
Seth Dixon, Ph.D.‘s insight:
Teaching about human trafficking and child slavery can be very disconcerting and uncomfortable. How much of the details regarding these horrific situations is age-appropriate and suitable for the classroom? The BBC is reporting on events with sensitive stories to both give a human face to the story, while protecting the identity of under-aged victims (to read about the production of this comic, read Drawing the News.)
I encourage you to use your own discretion, but I find this comicbook format an accessible, informative and tasteful way to teach about human trafficking in South Asia to minors. It is a powerful way to teach about some hard (but important) aspects of globalization and economics.
As geographer Shaunna Barnhart says concerning this comic, “It moves from trafficking to child labor to pressures for migration for wage labor and the resulting injustices that occur. There’s differential access to education, gender inequality, land, jobs, and monetary resources that leads to inter- and intra-country trafficking of the vulnerable. In the search for improved quality of life, individuals become part of a global flow of indentured servitude which serves to exploit their vulnerabilities and exacerbate inequalities and injustice. Nepali children ‘paid’ in food and cell phones that play Hindi music in ‘exchange’ for work in textile factories – cell phones that are themselves a nexus of global resource chains and textiles which in turn enter a global market – colliding at the site of child labor which remains largely hidden and ignored by those in the Global North who may benefit from such labor.”
Tags: Nepal, labor, industry, economic, poverty, globalization, India.
See on www.bbc.co.uk
“This week’s Boston Marathon bombing fit with the norm of U.S. terrorist events and threats in one important way: it occurred in a major city. American concerns about terrorism, however, seem to ignore that pattern…There’s a divide on people’s thoughts about terrorism. People that live in places most likely to be hit by terrorism seem the most sunny about the country’s anti-terror prospects and efforts. And those in rural places, are more concerned and pessimistic.”
Seth Dixon, Ph.D.‘s insight:
This article cites data from the PEW Reseach Center that implies that city dwellers seem to feel less dread about terror threats than their suburban and rural counterparts, despite the fact they live in the primary target zone (see full size infographic here).
Question to Ponder: Why are the Americans most vulnerable to terrorist attacks the least concerned with terrorism?
Tags: terrorism, statistics, USA, infographic, urban.
See on online.wsj.com
GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION 