GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

Written by Phil Gersmehl, the author of Teaching Geography, this article shows how teachers can read maps to gather contextual information about places in a way that fosters deeper learning.  The Common Core ELA standards emphasize a “close reading,” but the examples of reading of maps and charts are often rather superficial.  The National Geographic has recently produced Interconnections to be a guide for teachers of both geography and English to see how the two are interrelated and to promote geo-literacy for a more profound appreciation for spatial analysis and place-based knowledge.    

Tags: English, National Geographic, geography education, spatial, teacher training, mapping.

Just today I mentioned in class that South Sudan had some serious issues in establishing effective governance over their territory and building a legitimate government…then I read this.  Starting a new country is difficult, especially with the hand South Sudan has been dealt–stay tuned. 

Tags: South Sudan, political, Africa, states.

Questions to Ponder: Why does place matter for creating opportunities for social mobility?  What geographic obstacles to  economic improvement do you see for the poorest America

Tags: class, poverty, place,  USA.

Earlier this week when Detoit filed for bankruptcy I posted that Detroit has failed as a major U.S. city.  While Detroit’s days of being the 4th largest city in the U.S. and a prominent industrial center are over, that doesn’t equate with the total economic ruin of the region.  Some are seeing this as an opportunity for for their businesses build a new Detroit out of Motown’s ashes, foster regional collaboration and restructure the economic base of the city.  The region is still rich with resources.  

Tags: urban, economic, industry, Detroit. 

Sports maps with team logos on them are often hand-drawn works of art without much data to back them up–not so with this map.  Read the article to find the actual data which is much messier than these bold color proclaim.  These regions aren’t homogenous (are they ever?) but this is the best fit line between the major groups of fans.  The Vermont-New York State border is a fairly crisp dividing line and demonstrated by the data.

The border that winds through Connecticut is much more complex, showing that Connecticut is the true ‘battle ground’ for this regional rivalry.

As the cartographer Ben Blatt states, “Drawing a border through Connecticut using the map above and the data was not easy. I decided that a border should be contiguous. This made it impossible to group all the Sox-leaning towns on one side and all Yankee-leaning towns in the other. The border I came up with is below. There are several other borders that could have been drawn that would have been similarly accurate. My border tried to maximize the number of towns with more than 50% Sox fans on the Red Sox side and the number of towns with more than 50% Yankee fans on the Yankee side.”

This is quite different for this map which is explained in this New York Times article.

Tags: sport, statistics, mapping, regions, Rhode Island, Boston, NYC.

In a dry climate where urban expansion gets closer to dry brush, wild fires become a major summer hazard.

Tags: remote sensing, images, environment, land use, disasters, biogeography.

This is geographically inspired art at it’s finest.  It goes beyond making beautiul jewelry with maps or showing majestic vistas of natural landscapes; the artistic concept that motivated the photographer was geographic in nature.  Population density is highly clustered leaving great spaces of open, empty, unpopulated land and some major cities that are jam-packed with human activity and settlements.  Merging both of these concepts into the same image produced this series of 6 images (as seen in this Atlantic Cities article).

Tags: art, density, NYC, landscape.