“The Landsat program is the longest continuous global record of the Earth’s surface, and continues to deliver both visually stunning and scientifically valuable images of our planet. This short video (download here) highlights Landsat’s many benefits to society.“
The news of this art installationthis summer captivated the media. Art transforms the place, and the place breaths additional layers of meaning into the work of art. The result was an highly evocative and poignant landscape created to be a living reminder of multiple historical events and the wounds that war can inflict on a national consciousness.
Earlier I shared a dynamic map of near-live wind data for the United States and a static rendering of global wind patterns. This combines the features of both of those resources to provide a mesmerizing digital globe. This visualization of global weather conditions is updated every three hours from supercomputer data projections. Click on the ‘earth’ text in the lower left-hand corner to customize the display. For examining the wind patterns and oceans currents, this is much more useful than Google Earth; this is definitely one of my favorite resources.
“The world is becoming more and more interconnected. Globalization changes how people consume, work and live almost everywhere on the world. Today, many economic, political, cultural or ecological relationships are not explainable from a national perspective. At the same time, a controversial debate about the consequences of globalization has begun.“
This is a good video to explain globalization (although this is my personal favorite), to see that it not just an economic force, but one that touches just about every facet of modern life.
Questions to ponder: What are the driving forces behind globalization? What areas are most impacted by globalization? How does globalization benefit some, and adversely impact others? Why?
“In this exclusive, unedited interview, ‘I Am Malala’ author Malala Yousafzai remembers the Taliban’s rise to power in her Pakistani hometown and discusses her efforts to campaign for equal access to education for girls. Malala Yousafzai also offers suggestions for people looking to help out overseas and stresses the importance of education.”
For younger audiences, hearing someone their own age discuss educational opportunities (or the lack thereof) based on gender can leave a profound impression. Today, Malala is a Nobel Peace Prize winner(deservedly so), as she’s become an icon in her own right as she champions developmental opportunities for girls in cultures that historically have not had equal offerings for young women. Watch this documentary to see who she was before she was thrust into the international spotlight.
“No one has found out how to help Denmark’s falling birth rate. Until now. Spies Travels announces a competition where you have to make a baby to win.”
Not all countries are concerned about overpopulation; Countries like Japan are in steep decline in terms of their population. Denmark is a country that is seeking to to encourage higher fertility rates (and this travel company is using this salacious ad to promote the it and themselves, but there is some actual demographic analysis in there). Singapore’s National Night was another innovative campaign to boost fertility rates (warning: the video is provocative).
“This 18-stanza poem by Kit Salter, beautifully captures the importance of geographic thinking in any history/social studies curriculum. This was shared by Dr. Vernon Domingo and the slides of his keynote address titled, Integrating Geography and History are available here.”
It was my privilege to hear my good friend and fellow geo-evangelist, Dr. Vernon Domingo recently as he shared ideas on the importance of integrating geographic analysis in historical inquiry. He shared a fabulous poem by Kit Salter, one of the pioneers in the Network of Geographic Alliances. I’ll only share the first stanza here:
How can there be a separate scene, For history without place How can there be events in time, For which there is no space?
“Secession movements seem to be everywhere: from the Kurds in Iraq, to pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists, to Scotland’s aim to break up the UK. How does secession actually happen? Let’s look back to South Sudan’s successful secession effort to see exactly how new countries gain independence.”
What does it take to actually secede from a country? This video takes the example of South Sudan to highlight the necessary requirements to successfully secede and then gain full independence.