GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

Source: www.youtube.com

Partly just because I love this highly quotable movie with an incredible soundtrack, but this short clip from O Brother Where Art Thou? can start be a good conversation starter.  I’m hoping to use it when discussing relative location (or isolation) as well as the time-space compression.  Frequently, I ask my student how far away they live from campus and invariably they answer with a unit of time (even though distance was implied in the question). 

Questions to Ponder: Why do we often answer with a measurement of time when discussing distance?  What technologies are dependent on our temporal analysis of distance? How would our perception of distance change based on our access to transportation and communication technologies?

Tags: Time-Space Compression, location.

“A former student of mine drew my attention to a recent article in Slate written by Alyssa Pelish and titled ‘The Stimulating History of Coffee: Why You Hear This Word Around the World’.”

Tags:  language, culture, diffusion.

Source: languagesoftheworld.info

“Prior to the 1960’s, the Aral Sea was the fourth largest lake and approximately the size of Ireland. Fed by both the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers carrying snowmelt from the mountains to the southeast, the Aral Sea moderated the climate and provided a robust fishing industry that straddled the present-day border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. For the map savvy, that Aral Sea would be almost unrecognizable—it has long appeared as two basins known as the North and the South Aral Sea since the rivers were diverted for crops, leading to the Aral Sea’s alarming shrinkage. Recent NASA satellite imagery shows the decline that the Aral Sea has undergone since 2000, leaving the South Aral Sea completely dried up in 2014. “

Tags: podcast, Maps 101, historical, environment, Central Asia, environment modify, Aral Sea.

Source: maps101blog.com

Coca-Cola got a lot of attention in November when it announced it was going into the milk business. In fact, its extra-nutritious milk product was invented by some dairy farmers in Indiana.

Source: www.npr.org

Central Asia is full of lands whose names end in -stan. A certain powerful North American country has a related name. How? It’s not your standard explanation…

Source: www.youtube.com

This video (with a similar style to CGP Grey’s videos) charts the cultural and geographic impact of one of the most important toponyms, -stan.  It also alludes to the fascinating history behind the name of Pakistan.  

Tags: Central Asia, language, toponyms, historical, Pakistan, culture, diffusion.

“For months, publishing giant HarperCollins has been selling an atlas it says was developed specifically for schools in the Middle East. It trumpets the work as providing students an ‘in-depth coverage of the region and its issues.  Its stated goals include helping kids understand the ‘relationship between the social and physical environment, the region’s challenges [and] its socio-economic development.’ Nice goals. But there’s one problem: Israel is missing.”

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

In other words, Israel got eliminated from this atlas that was designed to cater to Middle Eastern countries that take umbrage with the fact that Israel…exists.  Making maps always has political overtones and the company is now realizing that you can’t please everyone with different versions for distinct audiences.  Now, HarperCollins has pulled the book and will pulp all remaining versions of the atlas.  

Tags: Israel, social media, political, mapping, cartography.

“Confluences occur wherever two streams come together. If the gradient is low (i.e., nearly level) and the properties of the two streams are very different, the confluences may be characterized by a dramatic visible distinction as the mixing occurs only slowly.”

Tags:  physical, fluvial, geomorphology, erosion, landscape.

Source: bsu-earthview.blogspot.com