GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

After cutting a destructive path through the Caribbean, Hurricane Sandy caused extensive damage along the East Coast this week.

While the damage wasn’t as bad as many feared it could have been, place and spatial context are especially important in assessing the impacts of a natural disaster.  This is a excellent collection of the many devastating images as a result of Hurricane Sandy.  To see some more local images, Rhode Island Department of Transportation put this collection together.   

See on www.boston.com

The 17-nation bloc had a jobless rate of 11.6 per cent in September, while inflation eased slightly in the last month.

Although some countries in the Eurozone have lower unemployment rates like Austria (4.4%) and Germany (5.4%), more are in the worst collective tailspin since the creation of the common currency.  Spain has the worst unemplyment rate at 25.8% of the adult population out of work.  It has taken a nasty cultural and political turn as resentments and frustrations are boiling over in the Eurozone.  Some are derisively referring to the struggling southern European countries as P.I.G.S. (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain). 

Tags: Europe, supranationalism, currency, labor, economic. 

See on www.aljazeera.com

Entrepreneur converts shipping container into mobile internet shop powered entirely by the sun.

This 2-minute video shows how a an enterpreneur has made his business (an internet cafe) self-sufficient, not relying much on external infrastruture.  Modern Africa has advanced beyond what many in the developed world acknowledge and is beyond stereotypes of the ‘Dark Continent.’ 

Tags: Africa, technology, development, video.

See on www.aljazeera.com

A pictorial investigation bureau, at your service.

Social media has fundamentally changed how information is disseminated.  Many photos that are spread on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest can be ‘doctored’ or mislabeled since citizen journalists aren’t held to the same standard of verifying their sources.  In the abundance of information, sorting out fact from fiction can be quite difficult.

See on www.theatlantic.com

What is more likely to happen first: Greece will leave the eurozone, or Scotland will leave the UK?

Although there is currently only about 30% of Scotland that would support independence, this is something that will be gaining importance.  The United Kingdom is a complex political entity, with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland connected with England.  The “divorce referendum” will be help on October 2014 to see if Scotland wishes to dissolve this union and many of the political and economic events throughout Europe will be seen through this prism, especially the Euro Zone crisis in southern European countries (e.g.-Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal).  The possibility that this might happen are small, but as the article stated, “not zero.”

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

See on www.theglobalist.com

Subway tunnels and parts of the Financial District have been flooded…

The flooding has been as devastating as expected given the height of the storm surge, but this image of Ground Zero still is chilling. 

See on weather.aol.com

This is a link from the Rhode Island Geography Education Alliance which is now on Twitter.

See on twitter.com

Experts say Hurricane Sandy is wider and stronger than Hurricane Irene, which caused more than $15 billion in damage in 2011, and could rival the worst East Coast storm on record.

This is a quick visual comparison of remote sensing images that lets you slide to compare the superimposed images. 

See on online.wsj.com