GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

Via Scoop.it – Geography Education

What is devolution and how has it changed how Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are governed?

This article with videos, charts and images was designed as a primer for UK voters for the 2010 election to understand who devolution in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland were reshaping the political landscape in the United Kingdom.  It is general enough that even though it is outdated as a news story, it serves as a concrete example from geography students to understand the processes and reasons for a decentralization of political power.

Via news.bbc.co.uk

Via Scoop.it – Geography Education

Amber Hill EDU10713 Curriculum, Assessment & New Media Emerging Pedagogies…

This student-produced video (from Southern Cross University in Australia) has many good insights…especially the tagline “we need to prepare our students for the future, not the past.” While all new technologies do not improve on tried and true practices, some are worth putting into our classes as the resources become available to us. Also this video outlines numerous resources and how they can be used in the classroom. Who says we can’t learn from students?

Via www.youtube.com

Via Scoop.it – Geography Education

nat geo programme about the coke factory and the manufacturing process of coke…

Where is Coca Cola produced?  Some products are bulk losing some are bulk gaining in the manufacturing process.  Coca Cola and their containers represent bulk gaining products.  Although not the focus of this video, what is the geography behind where these factories are located?  How would this geographic pattern change if this were are bulk losing industry?  What are examples of bulk gaining and bulk losing industries?

Via www.youtube.com

Via Scoop.it – Geography Education

Syrians by the thousands are fleeing the violence in their home country and seeking refuge in neighboring countries.

Demographics and Politics: This photo essay is a varied glimpse into the refugee camps that have emerged from the Syrian uprisings against the Assad regime.  How are politics and migration connected?  Can you think of other examples where we see similar patterns? 

Via www.boston.com

Via Scoop.it – Geography Education

Venice, by virtue of its geographic situation will always be sinking as a course of nature.  A research team from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the UCSD has recently concluded that Venice is sinking 2 millimeters per year…not catastrophic on a single year basis, but threatens the long-term viability and sustainability of the location.

Urban ecology: what economic forces created the rationale for building Venice?  What environmental factors are threatening it?  Will economic or environmental forces will out?  For additional information on this story see: http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-venice-hasnt.html

Via worldnews.msnbc.msn.com

Via Scoop.it – Regional Geography

If you are looking for a deeper look into curating, it can be found. I want to build a curation tool, so I am working my way though my backlog of pinboard links about curation. Here I have a list of all the tools I can find that would be considered curation tools.  Curating, blogging and critiquing can be excellent forms of student projects. 

Curating Tools (My personal favorites):

 Storify : http://storify.com/

 Scoop It : http://www.scoop.it/

Blogging Tools (My personal favorites):

Blogger: http://www.blogger.com

WordPress: http://www.wordpress.com

Tumblr: http://www.tumblr.com

Posterous: http://www.posterous.com

 Additional Curating Tools:

Stellar : http://stellar.io/

Bundlr : http://gobundlr.com/

Curated By : http://www.curated.by/

Thoora : http://thoora.com/

Postpost : http://postpo.st/

Snipi : http://www.snipi.com/

trap!t : http://trap.it/

scrible : http://www.scrible.com/

faveous : http://www.faveous.com/

memonic : http://www.memonic.com/home

Bag The Web : http://bagtheweb.com/

And more at Rumproarious : http://goo.gl/TxQSn

Via www.rumproarious.com

Via Scoop.it – Geography Education

This map shows the distribution of one major fast food outlet brand (McDonalds’s). By 2004 there were 30,496 of these McDonald’s worldwide with 45% located in the United States.  The next highest number of these outlets are in Japan, Canada and Germany.

The world average number of outlets of this one brand alone is 5 per million people. In the United States there are 47 per million people; in Argentina and Chile the rate is a tenth of the American rate; the rate in Indonesia, China and Georgia is a hundredth of the American rate. In all the territories of Africa there were only 150 outlets: mostly in South Africa.  What does this say about consumption, economics, development, globalization and branding?

Via www.worldmapper.org

Via Scoop.it – Geography Education

The Atlantic Cities: The Real Boundaries of the Bible Belt Religion in America has an unmistakable geographic dimension.

We often hear people in the deep South describe there state as the buckle in the Bible Belt.  This map of religiosity in the United States shows a clear Bible Belt with other interesting patterns (with some pertinent political ramifications in an election year).

Via www.theatlanticcities.com

Via Scoop.it – Geography Education

The Association of American Geographers (AAG) is now Beta-testing a new website to address some of the issues from the NRC report, “Understanding the Changing Planet, Strategic Directions for the Geographical Sciences.” This site, builds on the idea that geographers can communicate truth in ways that other disciplines don’t offer, or “the geographic advantage.”

The four aspects the geographic advantage (as conceptualized by the AAG team) are:

1.  Relationships between people and the environment

2.  Importance of spatial variability

3.  Processes operating an multiple and interlocking geographic scales

4.  The integration of spatial and temporal analysis

To ensure that this advantage is harnessed, the AAG prepared 11 modules within these 4 categories of key issue facing the world:

–Environmental Change

–Sustainability

–Rapid Spatial Reorganization

–Technological Change

The site is still under construction and will face some alterations. The AAG will provide beta-testers with a CD-ROM (Teachers Guide to Modern Geography) and select one module that you will fully explore. If you would like to be a beta-tester, sign up at: http://tinyurl.com/geoadvbeta

Via meridian.aag.org