GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

Experts are saying that Chinese-Japanese relations are as bad as they’ve been since the end of World War II.  Why all the commotion?  The tension has been heightened in the last few months when China claimed control over the airspace in  the East China Sea. Then the Japanese Prime Minister also gave offering to a shrine to honor World War II soldiers (veterans and heroes to some Japanese, war criminals to most of the international community).  China sees this as proof that Japan is becoming more militaristic and willing to exert more power in East Asia.  However, at the root of this issue is that both Japan and China claim certain islands and that is increasingly becoming a sticking point in foreign relations.  See this book review on “Asia’ Cauldron” for more context on the East China Sea.      

Tags: borders, political, conflict, China, Japan, East Asia.

Some of the wealthiest regions of the poorest countries of the European Union are seeking for greater regional autonomy and even independence.  As one resident said, “I have always felt as a Venetian first, and Italian second.”  The scale at which people construct their primary identities and political loyalties play a key role to the political geographic concept of devolution, where power shifts from a central authority to more local control.  So independence moves are to start negotiating.  As another Venetian said, “I think we’ll end up with a little more autonomy and a little more pride in our city” and not actual independence.

Tags: Italy,  political, economic, states, autonomy, devolution.

Agricultural production is one of the ways in which people modify the environment more than any other.  Global population is expected to top out at around 9 billion around 2050, so will we be able to sustainably feed all of the entire human population?  This one question brings up many more spatial, environmental, political and social questions–this interactive feature nicely addresses many of the pertinent issues in a very accessible manner.    

Tags: sustainability, agriculture, food production, environment modify, unit 5 agriculture. 

The demographic shifts in the United States are transforming the cultural fabric of the country and this interactive feature from the Pew Research Center explores some of these changes.  Interracial marriage, declining fertility rates, migration, economic opportunities and politics are just some of the issues that can be seen in these excellent populations pyramids, charts, videos and graphs.      

Tag: declining populations, population, demographic transition model, USA.

National Geographic Education has just finished producing all of 50 State Tabletop Mapmaker kits which focus on basic mapping skills for younger audiences.  This set of tiled 8.5 x 11 sheets really expands what you can do and to help educators know what to do with these resources, they wrote this article that shows 9 ways to use these new state maps in your classroom.  I’m looking forward to printing off the Rhode Island state map!

Tags: National Geographic. mapping, K12.

This video perfectly exemplifies some key geographic ideas; sense of place, regional economic decline, migration and resource extraction.  This video would be great to shows students and then get them to analyze the geographic context that creates a place like McDowell County, West Virginia.  This will be a great addition to my Place-Based Geography Videos StoryMap.  

Tags: economic, place, industry, location, migration, APHG, poverty, socioeconomic,

Some of the nuts and bolts behind Google Earth might be difficult to replicate in the computer lab, but it is critical to conceptually understand how geospatial data is used today.  This series of images shows how important remote sensing is for our modern digital mapping platforms.  

Tags: cartography, visualization, mapping, remote sensing, google.