GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

Are you a high school teacher looking for some funds for your classroom?  The My Community, Our Earth: Global Connections and Exchange Program (PDF) is connecting high school students in the U.S. with their peers abroad (in Bolivia, Ghana, Nicaragua and the Philippines) through virtual online meetings.  The Association of American Geographers is especially eager to have AP Human Geography teachers participate in this program.  These meetings are arranged through online video conferences, online phone calls and chat sessions using Skype. The purpose of these meetings is to stimulate thinking and collaboration between high school students across international borders around sustainable development themes such as climate change, green economy, food security and hazards and vulnerability, while enriching cultural literacy. We are looking for formal and informal educators in the U.S., at the high school level, who would like to participate with us.

For every time that you complete one hour of exchange and submit one MyCOE exercise to our online system, you will receive $300 for your classroom (personal check or Amazon gift card). 

Ready to Participate? Please send e-mails to mycoe@aag.org. 

Tags: AAG, teacher training, APHG.

Many have raved about the TV show airing on the History Channel “How the States got their Shapes.”  For Amazon Prime users, season 1 is free to stream. 

The traditional family is declining in social prominence in many developed societies (this is hardly a phenomenon unique to Canada) as fewer young people are choosing to marry and have children.  How does this impact individuals, families, communities and countries?

Tags: Canada, declining population, population, demographics, unit 2 population.

Somalia’s political troubles are not over, but it is no longer the drought-ridden country overrun by Islamist extremist that it was two years ago.  For years it held the dubious title of “the world’s most failed state.”  Al Shabbab, the militant group linked to Al Qaeda, left the capital of Mogadishu in 2011 and in 2012 lost their last stronghold.  Piracy still exists off the Somali coast, but it has lessened as a semblance of political order is being restored to the Horn of Africa.

Tags: Somalia, Africa, political, conflict, war.

I have previously posted on how successful flashmobs use public places in a way that symbolically merges the meaning of that space with the message of the that place.  This is a fabulous example of that, especially given the economic woes of southern Europe.

As Jordan Weismmann said about this flashmob in the Atlantic, “I’m not sure if this video is more heartbreaking or heartwarming, but it pretty well captures what’s going on in Europe’s economy right now. While the day-to-day drama of the continent’s debt crisis has subsided, painful austerity measures have helped leave huge swaths of the population jobless. In Spain, unemployment is at 25 percent.”

In Booneville, CA, local residents literally created their own language over 150 years ago and had it was locally accepted enough to be taught within the school district.  This language of Boontling (Boont Lingo) but one that the younger generation has not fully adopted, but is still spoken by the older residents. 

Tags: folk culture, language, culture, rural, unit 3 culture.