NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio — the same team that recently brought us an animation of the moon as it will appear from Earth for each hour of 2012 — has also released a stunning video called “Perpetual Ocean,” a time lapse of the world’s ocean currents as calculated by the ECCO2 computational model.
This is an stunning visualization of ocean currents. Thanks for the suggestion!
Via Scoop.it – Geography Education
Abshir Boyah, a pirate who says he has hijacked more than 25 ships off the coast of Somalia, says he will give up this career if certain terms are met.
What economic, cultural and political circumstances in the 21st century would allow for piracy to exist? What are the impacts of piracy on Somalia?
Via Scoop.it – Regional Geography
Somali pirates seek haven in Eyl, the capital of Puntland, where support for piracy is widespread. But who exactly is benefitting from the million dollar ran…
What is life like in a village that is a haven for pirates? The cultural, political and economic situation is dramatically different from where most of us live.
Via Scoop.it – Geography Education
How can political stability and security be measured? What constitutes effective governance? Foreign Policy, in conjunction with the Fund for Peace, has created a statistical ranking to measure the lack of effective political institutions. For the 4th year running, Somalia has been statistically measured as the most failed state on Earth. Chad and Sudan are respectively ranked as the 2nd and 3rd most failed states.The 12 metrics that are a part of this index are:
•Demographic Pressures
•Refugees/IDPs
•Illegitimate Govts.
•Brain Drain
•Public Services
•Inequality
•Group Grievances
•Human Rights
•Economic Decline
•Security Forces
•Factionalized Elites
•External Intervention
Via Scoop.it – Geography Education
Free site dedicated to help teachers educate and engage students using Google Earth…
This is a phenomenal site, designed by an AP teacher to bring geospatial technologies into the classroom in a way that is incredibly user-friendly. With multiple data layers of physical and human geography variables, this interactive globe puts spatial information in powerful, yet fun, student-inspired platform.
Via Scoop.it – Geography Education
Sex and World Peace (9780231131827): Valerie M. Hudson, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli, Chad F. Emmett
I have not yet had the opportunity to read this book but feel that it touches on some of the core issues in geography today: gender, culture and political stability (plus, it’s just a great title). The authors of Sex and World Peace explore the relationships between cultural norms regarding gender and political stability and war. They show that security for women translates to security for the state. According to the authors, they “compare micro-level gender violence and macro-level state peacefulness in global settings…[and] mount a solid campaign against women’s systemic insecurity, which effectively unravels the security of all.”
Written by professors in geography, political science and psychology, Sex and World Peace is the synthesis of years of research produced by the WomanStats project. For more about this ongoing project and the great database which they have produced (loaded with potential for student projects) see: http://womanstats.org/
Via Scoop.it – Geography Education
March 26, 2012—In a state-of-the-art submersible, National Geographic explorer-in-residence and filmmaker James Cameron reached the deepest point of the Mariana Trench, breaking a world record for the deepest solo dive.
For those who haven’t been following National Geographic news, James Cameron (director of “Titanic” and “The Abyss”) entered a submarine named DEEPSEA CHALLENGER, and dove to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest point on Earth. Enjoy this video describing this “lunar-like” environment that is so deep it is lightless and near lifeless with extreme pressure. For more on the expedition, read: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/03/120326-james-cameron-mariana-trench-challenger-deepest-lunar-sub-science/
Via Scoop.it – Geography Education
Google maps brings the world to your desktop – well, most of it, anyway. Here are 10 locations that governments and other entities have blurred or removed from satellite photos.
A user of geospatial technologies is not free to explore all places of the Earth with equal levels of specificity. Why? Where? How come?
Via Scoop.it – Geography Education
TRAVEL by ferry from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, in one of the regions that makes China the workshop of the world, and an enormous billboard greets you: “Time is Money, Efficiency is Life.”
China’s economic growth has been explosive. Many people predicting the economic future have used current growth percentages and trajectories to extrapolate into the future. The question that we should ask is: how long can China continue to grow at this current pace? Many signs are pointing to the difficulty that China will have in sustaining these levels of growth. The era of China being the world’s go-to source for cheap manufacturing is dependent on current geographic variables, variables that the economic growth is altering.
GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION 