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GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

Supporting geography educators everywhere with current digital resources.

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sethdixon

I am a geography professor at Rhode Island College.

Creamed, Canned And Frozen: How The Great Depression Revamped U.S. Diets

During the Depression, cheap, nutritious and filling food was prioritized — often at the expense of taste. Jane Ziegelman and Andy Coe, authors of A Square Meal, discuss food trends of the time.

Source: www.npr.org

Peanut butter and school lunches became fixtures of American culture during the Depression.  On the flip side, our modern preference for freshness is a reaction against the Depression’s obsession to find ways to preserve food for longer amounts of time.  

 

Tags: food, economic, food distribution, historical, podcast.

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Climate Comparison Maps

“Triton1982 makes maps by comparing each of the city’s highest and lowest average temperatures against the Koppen classification system.”

Source: www.triplem.com.au

Many maps are shared on Reddit, and this series of maps help make some far off places easier to relate to.  I think these cross-regional comparisons can also help students also see that countries can have a great degree of internal variety.  

 

Tags: Australia, Oceania, mapping, visualization 

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The Real Reason Leaves Change Color In the Fall

Tags: environment, biogeography.

Source: www.youtube.com

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Remembering September 11th

Video and Photographs of the event. All media is from the internet and not my own. I compiled all media from the internet and edited them together to tell the story of the deadliest attack on America.

Source: www.youtube.com

The compilation above was created by a teacher who realized that now none of his students were alive to remember how emotional it was for people to watch the horrific news unfold.  Additionally, this video of how Canadians helped the U.S. paired with this lesson plan from the Choices Program will help students explore the human dimension of the September 11 attacks as will this lesson from Teaching History. For a geospatial perspective on 9/11, this page from the Library of Congress, hosted by the Geography and Map Division is a visually rich resources (aerial photography, thermal imagery, LiDAR, etc.)  that show the extent of the damage and the physical change to the region that the terrorist attacks brought.  The images from that day are a part of American memory and change how the event is remembered and memorialized in public spaces (if you want a touching story of heroism, the Red Bandana is moving). .

 
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Sinkhole looks like an abyss, recharges aquifer

At this sinkhole, about 500 cubic feet of water per second is disappearing into the earth, the equivalent of an Olympic-sized swimming pool every three minutes, according to an engineer with the Edwards Aquifer Authority. For as much water reaches the aquifer at this spot, far more infiltrates through porous rock across South-central Texas.

Source: www.mysanantonio.com

Not all water runoff goes to rivers, lakes, and oceans.  Some water percolates into soils that can absorb water (aquifers) but there are some soils such as clay that can’t absorb water (aquicludes or aquitards).  In this dramatic example (see video), the water is not absorbed by the resistant rock, flows through a sinkhole to recharge the aquifer below.    

 

Tags: physical, geomorphology, water, erosion.

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Turkey’s ‘bumpy ride’ into the EU?

“As the UK prepares for what looks like a slow and painful divorce from the European Union, the people of Turkey are wondering how their relationship with Europe will now develop.

The government in Ankara has been seeking to strengthen its case to join the EU, but as Europe grapples with Brexit – is the Turkey’s membership closer or further away?”

Source: www.bbc.com

This video show some of the recent shifts in the always important, often rocky Turkey/EU relationship.   Economically, Turkey has consistently sought greater ties with Europe for the past few decades and Europe keeps Turkey at arms length.    Turkey has applied to join the EU, but that is not going to happen without some massive social restructuring that would take years. 

 

Tags: Europe, Turkey, supranationalism, economic,  refugees, political, video.

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It’s a Matter of Perspective

“There’s a flip side to everything,” the saying goes, and in 2 minutes, Derek Sivers shows this is true in a few ways you might not expect.

Source: www.youtube.com

In this ultra-short TED talk, Derek Sivers show that what is considered true is often dependent on your perspective, the context, and how it is situated within a particular paradigm.  This is a mind-blowing video because it exposed our framework (which might go unquestioned as universal) to be but one of many ways in which to organize the world and the information within it.  His first example is the Japanese address system (I prefer to show this version of the same material since the visuals are better).  I also enjoy showing this clip together to hammer home the point that our perspective shapes our view of reality.  
 
Tags: Japan, perspective, TED. 
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Death Valley’s Roving Rocks

Death Valley,California – Giant boulders in the desert look as though their moving all on their own! But could weird weather be behind these roving rocks

Source: www.youtube.com

Since the video above was created, the mystery has been solved.  On very rare occasions, when it rains in the region, water will accumulate in the playa (discovermagazine.com).  If the wind is powerful and consistent enough, the wind will push the panels of ice against these rocks and over time, the ice floes will push these rocks, leaving behind distinctive trails (latimes.com). This perfect combination of water, wind, ice and heat creates a remarkable signature on the landscape (livescience.com).  The video in this article (weather.com) nicely explains how the non-aerodynamic rocks of Death Valley’s Racetrack Playa move, leaving behind their trail in the hot desert.  Numerous attempts using GPS receivers (NatGeo.com) and good ol’ fashioned observations have been made, but observing ice in Death Valley is so rare that no one had ever seen it until now (phys.org).  

 

Tags: physical, geomorphology, landforms, desert, landscape.

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Dakota Access Pipeline: What You Need to Know

Conflict between Native American protesters and private security personnel over construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline has turned violent. What is the Dakota Access Pipeline?

 

Tags: industry, conflict, economic, energy, resources, environment, indigenous, ecology.

Source: blog.education.nationalgeographic.com

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