GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

Facing a mounting housing shortage, squatters have transformed an abandoned skyscraper in downtown Caracas into a makeshift home for more than 2,500 people. …

Source: www.youtube.com

This video is one of my favorites in my placed-based geography videos collection.  This skyscraper was once a symbol of wealth, and in an incredible paradigm shift, it has now become is occupied by squatters. The lack of a vibrant formal economy and more formal housing leads to a lack of suitable options for many urban residents–especially with problems in the rural countryside. A complex web of geographic factors needs to be explained to understand this most fascinating situation. This NY Times article from 2011 still shows some great concepts on why informal housing develops and this PRI podcast gives us a 2014 update–that the Venezuelan government plans to clear the Tower of its residents.  

Tags: Venezuela, South America, squatter, urban, planning, density, urbanism, unit 7 cities. 

“Overview video for GE Teach http://geteach.com/maps.”

Source: www.youtube.com

GE Teach is a powerful mapping platform that harnesses the power of Google Earth into a user-friendly format.  I’ve you’ve ever wanted multiple maps on the screen to compare and contrast, this is great tool.  Designed by an APHG teacher, this is a great way to bring geospatial technologies into the classroom.  With multiple data layers of physical and human geography variables, this becomes an interactive globe.  Click here for the video tutorial.  

Tags: google, mapping, virtual tours, geospatial, APHG, edtech.

Some are contemplating migration, severing ties to their holy land. Others want to stay and protect their shrines.

Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

When we discuss the geography of religion, frequently we are discussing the distribution of particular religions.  However, some religions are deeply embedded in particular places and their spiritual rites, customs and traditions are intrinsically linked with sacred spaces and particular geographies.  The Yazidi are are religious group that is deeply connected to the mountains of northern Iraq–areas that are now being evacuated because of ISIS.  Some are contemplating migrating to safety, but severing their ties to their holy land. Others want to stay and protect their sacred spaces.

Tags: place, culture,  religion, Middle East.

Members of the Flag Institute have created designs for what the Union Flag could look like in the event of independence

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

I’ve already posted various links this week on Scottish independence and what it might mean, but I think these two are also worth considering.  Flags are the great icons of state identity, and a UK without Scotland might reconsider it iconography.  This links to an article from the Telegraph and a photogallery with 12 ‘candidate flags’ for a UK that does not include Scotland.  Why might some resist the idea of creating a new national symbol?

Tags: devolution, historical, political, states, sovereignty, autonomy, Europe, unit 4 political, UK.

Thanks to demographics, the Republicans have a virtual stranglehold on the House of Representatives.

Source: www.nytimes.com

“An aerial perspective on Burning Man 2013, in Black Rock Playa, NV”

This annual arts festival with a strong counter-cultural ethos literally is an experiment in producing alternative urban and cultural geographies that reject normative regulations embedded within societies. These geographies created last only about a week, as an escape from the regular strictures of society. Burning Man celebrates alternative spiritualities and creates monuments to impermanence while allowing people to wear zany costumes. Many feel that in leaving behind ‘the real world’ they find their true home at Burning Man. The ephemeral alternative geographies then fade back into the desert but not without creating a visually remarkable place. Some feel that the festival has become too popular and famous to be what it truly was intended to be as the rich and famous descend on the playa as well.

Questions to Ponder: Part of Burning Man’s success is due to its impermanence; if this community were created to exist year-round, would it still work? Why or why not? Why do festivals like this attract so many? What does it culturally say about the participants and the societies that they leave behind?

Tags: community, place, architecture, images, art, landscape.

“Have you heard of Alexander von Humboldt? Not likely. The geologist turned geographer and South American explorer was a bit of an 18th century super scientist, traveling over 24,000 miles to understand the relationship between nature and habitat. George Mehler details Humboldt’s major accomplishments and why we should care about them today. See this TED ED lesson plan that accompanies the video.”

Source: www.youtube.com

Alexander von Humboldt has been described as the last great ancient geographer concerned with understanding an eclectic cosmography as well as the first modern geographer. He is honored far and wide throughout Latin America and Europe, but given that intellectually people are confused as how to categorize him and classify his contributions, today he is under-appreciated.  Geographers need to reclaim his memory and call his extensive, globetrotting work on a wide range of subjects ‘geography.’    

Tags:  historical, biogeography, unit 1 Geoprinciples, TED.

“Violence has a geography and for this reason, geography lies at the center of discussions of violence. Within the United States a myriad of taken for granted assumptions about identity, place, power, and memory undergird the nation’s psyche.  These normative interpretations intersect with a particular kind of geographic formulation that places persons of color in general, but black men most specifically, at the center of the violent structures of the nation.”

Source: societyandspace.com

This isn’t merely commentary about social upheaval or some musing about the social inequities (I think we’ve all read a ton of those articles).  This is a geographic analysis that discusses the interactions, interconnections and implications of a social and spatial conflict between citizens and the institutions of the state.  Ferguson, MO is undoubtedly a lightning rod today and some might prefer to avoid discussing it in a classroom setting; I find that as long as we put analysis before ideology, issues such as these show students the relevance and importance of geographic principles to their lives. 

Tags: race, class, gender, place, poverty, socioeconomic.