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GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

Supporting geography educators everywhere with current digital resources.

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PBS Food: Potatoes

“Follow America’s favorite vegetable from field to factory — to see how potatoes grow and how they’re turned into chips.”

Source: www.pbs.org

This 5 minute video is a good introduction to the potato, it’s hearth, diffusion, population impacts, nutritional profile and industrial production.  The geography of food goes far beyond the kitchen and there are more episodes in the “How Does it Grow?” series to show that.   

Tags: foodeconomicfood production, agribusinessindustry, video, agriculture.

What Are You Flying Over? This App Will Tell You

Flyover Country uses maps and data from various geological and paleontological databases to identify and give information on the landscape passing beneath a plane. The user will see features tagged on a map corresponding to the ground below. To explain the features in depth, the app relies on cached Wikipedia articles. Since it works solely with a phone’s GPS, there’s no need for a user to purchase in-flight wifi. Sitting in your window seat, you can peer down on natural features like glaciers and man-made features, such as mines, and read articles about them at the same time.

 

Tagsmobilitytransportation, technology, physicalgeology.

Source: www.smithsonianmag.com

The forgotten way African Americans stayed safe in a racist America

When racist towns used to lynch people, these guides helped keep black travelers safe

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

I have mentioned the Green Book before, but now there is an interactive mapping application that let’s users map out a trip in the United States during the Jim Crow era. Geographer Derek Alderman complied these resources for teachers wanting to use the example of the Green Book in their classrooms.   

 

Tagsmobility, transportationrace, classculture, historical, ethnicity.

Why Do Some in UK Want To Leave The EU?

” Also see our video, Will The European Union Fall Apart? http://testu.be/1UYWZPm

Source: www.youtube.com

The European Union at one time seemed as though it would continue to further and further integrate European politics and economics.  With talk of possibly leaving the EU and a referendum on whether the UK should stay in the EU or not, the EU offered some extra special exemptions for the UK.  For a more in depth coverage, see this PBS News Hour video.  

 

Tags: Europe, supranationalism, economic, political.

America’s year without a winter: The 2015-2016 season was the warmest on record

Every state but two were warmer than normal and all six New England states set winter records.

 

 

Tags: physical, weather and climate, climate change.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Walk Appeal and Public Health

“The core idea of Walk Appeal is that people walk longest and most often in places that entice them, but rarely walk just because they’re told they ought to. Some Walk Appeal factors are measurable, while others are immeasurable, and it has long been clear that Walk Appeal is the best predictor of the viability of neighborhood businesses.”

Source: www.originalgreen.org

What is a reasonable distance to walk around town?  Research shows that cities with improved sidewalks, less parking lots, attractive storefronts and other amenities that encourage walking.  If  walking the urban environment is and of itself an experience worth having and makes the person feel like a flâneur, experiencing the city on a deeper level, automotive transport goes down and walking goes up.  Urban infrastructure is more important for most people than distance in deciding whether to get in the car or walk down the street (for distances under 2 miles).   Bottom line: neighborhoods that have an appealing sense of place are more walkable.

 

Tags: urbanplace, transportationplanning, urbanism, architecture.

Geographic Profiling Has Revealed Banksy’s True Identity

banksys-true-identity-revealed-1457108469“Art meets science in a new geographical profiling study from Queen Mary University of London, which probably just revealed the identity of the art world’s most and least iconic figure.”

Source: i-d.vice.com

I’m deeply ambivalent about this.  The spatial analyst in me loves see that mapping patterns can uncover truths but the cultural geographer in me feels sad that anonymity has been removed since that led to a greater mystique to his subverse, place-based art installations.  You can read the article to find out who he is, but I prefer the Banksy of my mind’s eye. 

Tags: placespatial, images, art, landscape, socioeconomic, class

Mumbai or Bombay? A British newspaper reverts to a colonial-era name.

The Independent’s concerns over Hindu nationalism led to a change in policy.

 

The city has been officially known as Mumbai since 1995 when it was renamed by the far-right regional party Shiv Sena, an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which currently holds national office in India. Shiv Sena advocates the use of the Marathi language, which is dominant in the state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital. Marathi speakers have long referred to the city as Mumbai, after the Hindu goddess Mumbadevi, the city’s patron deity.

Shiv Sena had argued that the previous name, Bombay, was an unwanted relic of British colonial rule in India. That name is believed to be an Anglicized version of the city’s name from when it was occupied by the Portuguese — “Bom Bahia,” which means “good bay.” Both Bombay and Mumbai are now used interchangeably by locals during casual conversation.

 

Tags: culture, India, South Asiacolonialism, placeregions, language, toponyms.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Why most 8th graders are not good at geography

Some experts argue overemphasis on reading and math tests is to blame for narrowing of content curriculum, reducing motivation to learn and breadth of knowledge.

Source: www.deseretnews.com

The U.S. government report on 8th grade geography is not a ‘pick-me-up’ but a sobering reminder of the task that lays before us.  This article quotes a few alliance coordinators on the current situation and how to change it. 

 

TagseducationK12geography education.

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