The first photographs have emerged of a newly formed volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean after three men climbed to the peak of the land mass off the coast of Tonga. Experts believe a volcano exploded underwater and then expanded until an island formed. The island is expected to erode back into the ocean in a matter of months.
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
Additionally, here are two islands off the coast of Japan that ‘kissed’ after a volcanic eruption caused them to coalesce into one island.
“Pristine Seas is an exploration, research, and media project to find, survey, and help protect the last wild places in the ocean. These pristine places are unknown by all but long-distance fishing fleets, which have started to encroach on them. It is essential that we let the world know that these places exist, that they are threatened, and that they deserve to be protected. Learn more about Pristine Seas here: http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/explore/pristine-seas/ “
Source: www.youtube.com
I was enchanted hearing Enriq Sala discuss his passion for ocean biodiversity and purity. This passion, combined with scientific exploration and political advocacy is the backbone of a National Geographic’s Pristine Seas project. Here is one news story about the Seychelles, and how they are trying to manage their fishing industries to promote sustainability and hopefully the Pristine Seas project will lead to greater awareness of the need for ocean conservation.
Tags: water, conservation, National Geographic, physical, biogeography, environment, pollution, resources.
“Nicknames are important branding strategies used by civic boosters, and Chicago’s namesakes are frequently employed to market the city and its surrounding region as ‘The Jewel of the Midwest’ and ‘Heart of America.’ At the same time, urban monikers can arise from the wider public and they have sometimes been used to draw attention to negative qualities of Chicago life.”
Source: news.aag.org
Is it Londonderry or just Derry? Xinjiang or Eastern Turkestan? The Sea of Japan or the East Sea? Persian Gulf or Arabian Gulf? Names and nicknames have political and cultural overtones that can be very important. As the author of this AAG article on the Chicago’s nickname, Chiraq says, “city nicknames are more than a gimmick; they can define geographies of violence, marginalization, and resistance.”
“Imagine you are a slave. You belong to a farmer who owns a tobacco plantation on the eastern shore of Maryland. Six long days a week you tend his field. But not for much longer . . .What will you do? Make your choices well as you embark on your journey to freedom.
To play The Underground Railroad: Journey to Freedom, you must download and install the free Sandstone Player Software on your computer. Sandstone is required to support the 3-D style interaction in the game. Click here to find instructions for downloading Sandstone on a Mac or PC. The game is also available as both an iOS and an android app.”
Tags: USA, historical, National Geographic.
Source: education.nationalgeographic.com
“The research shows that kids who have tough childhoods — because of poverty, abuse, neglect, or witnessing domestic violence, for instance — are actually more likely to be sick when they grow up. They’re more likely to get diseases like asthma, diabetes and heart disease. And they tend to have shorter lives than people who haven’t experienced those difficult events as kids.”
Source: www.npr.org
The hotspot maps of crime and poverty are correlated (not a big surprise), but this is another example of using spatial data to drive public policy. After making these initially correlations, they noticed a total lack of services, including medical care in the area that needed it most. This podcast is the story on how geographic analysis gave birth to a “clinic on wheels.”
Tags: medical, mapping, GIS, spatial, neighborhood, podcast, urban, place, poverty.
FEMA has coined a “Waffle House Index” to indicate the severity of a disaster.
Source: www.marketplace.org
A proxy variable is an easily measurable variable that is used in place of a variable that cannot be measured or is difficult to measure. The proxy variable can be something that is not of any great interest itself, but has a close correlation with the variable of interest. So if you can’t order waffles after a big storm at Waffle House might not matter in the big scheme of things, but as this podcast demonstrates, it is a good indicator that the region has been serious impacted by a natural disaster–they are the canary in the coal mine that FEMA is using to help plan their relief efforts. This is in part because Waffle House’s core area is in the South and is has a wide spatial network.
Tags: disasters, statistics, the South, regions, podcast.
“African countries are also quite diverse from an ethnic standpoint. As the Washington Post’s Max Fisher noted back in 2013, the world’s 20 most ethnically diverse countries are all African, partially because European colonial powers divvied up sections of the continent with little regard for how the residents would have organized the land themselves. This map above shows Africa’s ethnographic regions as identified by George Murdock in his 1959 ethnography of the continent.”
Tags: Africa, colonialism, borders, political, language, ethnicity.
Source: mic.com
Nkem Ifejika meets with Nigerian entrepreneurs who show how the nation’s economy is finding lubricants other than oil.
Source: soundcloud.com
The shadow economy, the black market or the side-hustle; these are all names for the informal sector of the economy. In many countries such as Nigeria, this is a way of making money outside their normal jobs to boost their income and try to rise above just getting by. “It was my grandmother who taught my mum that if you were lucky enough to have a salaried job, that was just pocket money. The real money came from your five to nine.” If working 9-to-5 represents the formal economy, this BBC podcast (and accompanying article) are all about the 5-to-9 economy.
U.S. Map + Haha + Yum = Foodnited States of America
Source: news.distractify.com
What can I say? Horrible puns, crafty maps and gorgeous food presentations…how could I not share this? You can follow the progress of this on-going project as they add more beautifully silly food map puns to their series under the hashtag #foodnitedstates on Foodiggity’s Instagram account.
GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION 