GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

Image Analysis

One of a number of large wildfires that have affected northern California in 2012, the Chips fire burned more than 75,000 acres by the time firefighters had contained it.

2012 is going to go down in United States history as the year with the most acres burned in a single year (statistics only go back to 1960). The two featured images were taken earlier this month to display a Northern California wildfire; both with the same spatial resolution and acquired for the same instrument (Advanced Land Imager on EO-1 satellite), yet they are quite distinct. One shows an aerial photograph, displaying exactly what standard visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum (showing us what our eyes would normally see). The other image displays a false color (near infrared) image.

Questions to ponder: what advantages does each image have for analyzing the fire damage? Drawbacks? How does the data from both images work together to create a more complete picture of the situation?

Tags: remote sensing, images, environment, land use, disasters, biogeography.

See on earthobservatory.nasa.gov

September 17, 2012 0

Disputed Isles

Competing territorial claims have led to maritime disputes off the coast of Asia. See a map of the islands at issue.

This is an nice interactive map that allows the reader to explore current geopolitical conflicts that are about controlling islands. This is an good source to use when introducing Exclusive Economic Zones, which is often the key strategic importance of small, lightly populated islands.

Tags: EastAsia, SouthEastAsia, political, unit 4 political, territoriality, autonomy, conflict, economic.

See on online.wsj.com

September 16, 2012 0

An Annotated Map of Today’s Protests and of the ‘Muslim World’

The violent backlash against the American film is taking place in Muslim societies, but it doesn’t seem to correlate with Islam’s reach.

This is a good reminder that the generalizing about “all Muslims” is as inaccurate as generalization about “all Christians” or any other group. The world and people are much more nuanced than that.

Tags: MiddleEast, Islam, conflict.

See on www.theatlantic.com

September 15, 2012 0

How The USA Expanded In One Mesmerizing Animated GIF

Amazing work from wikipedia, summarizing the evolution of the US formation, originally here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_the_United_States

Tags: USA, historical, visualization.

See on edudemic.com

September 15, 2012 0

The Authoritative Map

In the Winnie the Pooh Movie “Pooh’s Grand Adventure,” the character Rabbit has absolute confidence in the printed word and especially the map.

Questions to ponder: How much do we trust any given map? How much should we trust a map (or the printed word)? What makes a document reliable or unreliable?

Tags: mapping, perspective, K12, video.

See on www.youtube.com

September 15, 2012 0

On Israel’s system of segregated roads in the occupied Palestinian territories | Visualizing Palestine

Tags: MiddleEast, territoriality, transportation, borders, conflict, governance, political, unit 4 political.

See on visualizingpalestine.org

September 15, 2012 0

The Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans Gives New Meaning to ‘Urban Growth’

Since Katrina, the cartoonish pace of vegetation growth in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans resembles something out of a Chia Pet commercial.

The ecosystem is reclaiming parts of New Orleans that have been physically or economically abandoned. This is part elevation, climate and ecosystem; but it is also about urban land uses, disinvestment and socioeconomics.

Tags: urban ecology, environment, ecology, urban, unit 7 cities, disasters.

See on www.nytimes.com

September 15, 2012 0

Bounces in GPS signals reveal snow depth

UNAVCO, a non-profit university-governed consortium, facilitates geoscience research and education using geodesy.

“Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research have been using what is typically considered an error in the GPS signal to measure snow depth around GPS receivers. A GPS receiver records both direct and reflected signals from a satellite. A reflected signal bounces off of whatever is around the GPS station before being recorded, and therefore can contain information about the ground surface close to the station.

Traditionally snow depth has been measured by hand. In other words, someone had to go out with a measuring stick to whatever location they were interested in. GPS snow depth measurements solve both of these problems: once a GPS unit is installed, it can function on its own throughout the winter, and will make a measurement every two hours, which is then averaged for a daily position, or in this case, snow depth.”

Tags: GPS, climatechange, water, technology,

See on unavco.org

September 14, 2012 0

Global Closet Calculator

Interactive. The Global Closet Calculator aggregates the contents of your own closet by origin to generate a map showing your unique global footprint, and puts you in charge of the global journey your stuff takes to get to you.

As I’ve worked now with the Rhode Island Geography Education Alliance, I’ve had the good fortune to interact with the folks at National Geographic. They are preparing for Geography Awareness Week (Nov 11-17th) with the theme “Declare your Interdependence!” This newly released interactive feature allows students of all ages to see the global interconnections in their lives. By analyzing the items in our closets (or any of the items that we consume), we can easily see that our own personal geographies create a web of global interconnectedness.

Tags: NationalGeographic, GeographyEducation, K12, consumption, globalization.

See on education.nationalgeographic.com