GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

“On November 5, 2015, two dams collapsed at an iron ore mine in southeastern Brazil. The dam is owned by Samarco, a joint-venture between the mining companies Vale and BHP Billiton. News outlets estimate that more than 62 million cubic meters of wastewater have been unleashed so far with catastrophic consequences. The immediate release of sludge wiped out numerous villages including Bento Rodrigues (shown in greater detail above), causing the death of twelve people. Eleven others are still missing. Because of this pollution, more than half a million people do not have access to clean water for drinking or irrigating their crops. By November 23, the contaminated waters covered a 400 mile stretch of the Rio Doce River and entered into the sea, killing significant amounts of planet and animal life along the way. Officials are concerned that the toxins will threaten the Comboios Nature Reserve, a protected area for the endangered leatherback turtle.”

Tags: dam, environment, land use, sustainability, landscape, images, environment modify, pollution.

Source: www.dailyoverview.com

“‘Tis the season for some to take offense when a store clerk says ‘happy holidays’ instead of ‘merry Christmas.’  It is easy to imagine saying ‘merry Christmas’ as another cudgel in the culture wars between Christians and the irreligious. The actual story, however, is much more nuanced.”

Source: fivethirtyeight.com

70-degree weather will span from Florida into southern New England

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Circles show locations where the record temperatures for this time of year are being forecast to be broken (or within a degree of the record). 

Tags: physical, weather and climate.

“In my post last week I cited a few ways in which English is unsuitable as a global language, and mentioned that its being one anyway is attributable at least in part to undeserved luck. Of course, it wasn’t all luck.”

Tags: language, colonialism,  diffusion, culture, English.

Source: chronicle.com

Additionally, here is an article explaining why Mandarin won’t become a lingua franca in the near future. 

“A postal worker created a guide for black travelers that was published almost every year from 1936 to 1966.”

Source: hereandnow.wbur.org

The effects of globalization and technologies are uneven; this is a very clear example of how mobility and access to other places can be limited based on various segments of the population. It is repugnant to think that such a book was ever necessary in this country, but it is heartening to see the evidence of an organized network that worked to lessen the pain of those oppressed by it (podcast on the Green Book and an additional article).     

Geographer Derek Alderman complied these resources for teachers wanting to use the example of the Green Book in their classrooms.   

Tags: mobility, transportation, race, class, culture, historical, USA, ethnicity.

Regions of America have their own grammar, just like they have their own vocabulary.

Source: www.atlasobscura.com

Here’s you a post on regionalized grammatical differences.  And if you want a link of Southern vocabulary terms, (personal favorite: I’m fixin’ to…) click on this.

Tags: language, the South, culture, unit 3 culture.

See staff at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo try traditional Norwegian Christmas dishes. Se ansatte på den amerikanske ambassaden i Oslo smake på norsk julemat.

Tags: Norway, food, culture, seasonal, perspective.

Source: www.youtube.com

“The word lavaka means ‘hole’ or ‘gully’ in Malagasy, and it has become the accepted international term for the spectacular erosional features that characterize the highlands of Madagscar. Lavakas are gullies formed by groundwater flow, with steep or vertical sides and flat floors.”

Source: madmonster.williams.edu

Lavakas are often seen as an ecological catastrophe since rapid deforestion leads to young, active lavakas that can silt up rice fields.  While obviously not desirable, these scars on a deforested landscape do offer a glimmer of hope as well. Some National Geographic explorers are finding that older, stabilized lavakas can become great agricultural pockets for rebuilding in these denuded communities.

Tags: Madagascar, erosion, environment adapt,  environment, ecology, political ecology, Africa, National Geographic.

New research shows that more than four billion years ago the surface of Earth was heavily reprocessed – or melted, mixed, and buried – as a result of giant asteroid impacts. A new terrestrial bombardment model, calibrated using existing lunar and terrestrial data, sheds light on the role asteroid collisions played in the evolution of the uppermost layers of the early Earth

Tag: geology.

Source: sservi.nasa.gov