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GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

Supporting geography educators everywhere with current digital resources.

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What Rio doesn’t want the world to see

“Rio is hiding poor people. See Part II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3BRTlHFpBU “

Source: www.youtube.com

This isn’t news, but it isn’t just about Rio de Janeiro, since the World Cup and Olympics have already come and gone. Yet the urban planning designed for the world’s gaze remains.  Some strategies used were to create economic development and stimulate the local communities, but more often than not, the poor of the city and the poor communities cities were swept under the rug without addressing the issues that creating poverty with the city.  Many of the poor communities closest to Olympic venues were demolished without real viable housing options for the displaced residents.

 

Questions to Ponder: Can you think of other ways (of other examples) that city planning is used to hide the poor or the ‘less desirable’ parts of the city?  Why does this happen?  How should urban planning approach economic redevelopment, poverty, and community?   

 

Tags: Brazil, urban, squatter, neighborhood, economic, planning, urbanism.

 

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2017 APHG Professional Development

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“One of the greatest aspects of the APHG reading is the professional networking, collaboration and sharing that happens with this enthusiastic set of high school and college educators.  In addition to the fun evening activities, every year we also hold several professional development activities in the evening.”

On Tuesday evening, June 6th, we had an incredibly dynamic guest speaker with a gift for making his research relevant to his audience.  Chris McMorran talk was entitled, “Geographies of Home: producing home across scale in Japan and Singapore.”  He generously provided the digital copy of his PPTx slides with his permission to use them in your classrooms (High Resolution with multimedia-70 MB, Medium Resolution with multimedia-57 MB, Low Resolution without multimedia-15 MB).

On Wednesday evening, June 7th we had our annual “Night of the Round Tables” event.  This event was designed to create a place to share new ideas, pick up lesson plans, discover new resources, and develop strategies for teaching geography.  Presenters had 15 minutes to present.  Below are the digital copies of the presentations and the handouts that they wanted to share:

Tags: APHG, teacher training, geography education.

Source: geographyeducation.org

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2017 APHG Newsletters

Greetings from Cincinnati, OH, home of the 2017 AP Human Geography reading.  Over 700 professionals are here to score over 200,000 exams.  I’ve been delighted in the past to share the Professional Development activities and newsletters and will continue to do so.  This post will be updated throughout the reading (June 2-8).

Source: geographyeducation.org

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America’s Best Long Trails

Plan your next big hike with this map of America’s most-loved long trails.

Source: www.backpacker.com

My uncle hiked the entire Pacific Crest Trail and as a kid the enormity of that feat was both inspirational and mind-boggling.  Recently I watched an incredible documentary about an ultra-marathoner’s quest on Vermont’s Long Trail (Finding Traction: free on Amazon Prime–trailer here).  While I doubt most of us could go the full length of these trails given our jobs, fitness levels, etc., I do think that getting outside to explore some of the physical environments in our local areas this summer sounds like a fantastic idea (high-res map here).  

 

Tags: transportation, landscape, place, sport, physical, environment, mapping, map.

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How Clean is Narragansett Bay?

“The progress in Rhode Island toward clean water owes a lot to this federal law. Seeing urban rivers and the beaches and coves of the upper bay rediscovered as natural assets for wildlife and people to enjoy is one of the great successes of the Clean Water Act [of 1972].”

Source: www.rimonthly.com

This article from geographer Mary Grady shows a pleasant story in the human and environmental interaction.  The upper bay (that in-between place where the Providence River widens and becomes part of the Narragansett Bay) has been cleaned up and has ecologically been revitalized and is becoming an asset to the community again.  It is far from pristine, but it nice to read about encouraging signs on this front.  

 

Tags: water, coastal, Rhode Island.

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Esri GeoInquiries™ for World History

“The Esri Education Outreach team is pleased to announce the release of a sample pack from the forthcoming GeoInquiries™ collection for World History classrooms.  The sample pack includes the first four activities supporting high school World History instruction with ArcGIS Online.  Eleven additional activities will be released over the coming weeks.”

Source: education.maps.arcgis.com

ESRI has produced GeoInquires for Earth Science, US History, Environmental Science, AP Human Geography, 4th grade, and has recently released a now has a set for World History.

Tags: mapping, geospatial, empire, historical, ESRI, K12, edtech.

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Massive landslide adds to ‘unprecedented’ damage along scenic Highway 1 in Big Sur area

“A massive mudslide along the California coast.  Millions tons of rock/dirt, about 1/3 mile of roadway covered 35-40 feet deep.”

Source: www.latimes.com

A steep slope, unstable ground, and changing moisture content result is this spectacular (and horrifying) example of how the Earth beneath our feet might not be as permanent as we expect it to be.

 

Questions to Ponder: Which type of mass wasting is seen in this particular example?  What conditions would lead to other types of mass wasting?  

 

Tags: physical,  California, geomorphology, erosion, landforms.

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Drought and Famine

In which John Green teaches you a little bit about drought, which is a natural weather phenomenon, and famine, which is almost always the result of human activity. Throughout human history, when food shortages strike humanity, there was food around. There was just a failure to connect those people with the food that would keep them alive. There are a lot of reasons that food distribution breaks down, and John is going to teach you about them in the context of the late-19th century famines that struck British India.

Source: www.youtube.com

Famine is exacerbated by natural factors such as drought, but those only stress the system, they rarely cause the actual starvation.  The real failure is that the political/economic systems created by governments and how they handle stains in the food production/distribution systems.  Widespread famines are very rare in democracies and are much more prevalent in authoritarian regimes.  Many of the recent examples have come from collectivation strategies that governments have implemented (currently Venezuela, but historically the Soviet Union and China).  The Choices program has some good resources about teaching current events with the famines today.

 

Tags: food, poverty, historical, colonialism, economic, political, governance, agriculture, crash course. 

 

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4 ways to make a city more walkable

Freedom from cars, freedom from sprawl, freedom to walk your city! City planner Jeff Speck shares his “general theory of walkability” — four planning principles to transform sprawling cities of six-lane highways and 600-foot blocks into safe, walkable oases full of bike lanes and tree-lined streets.

Source: www.ted.com

As the 2017 APHG exam has ended, some people have asked for more resources on new urbanism.  This TED talk from Jeff Speck gives a good sense of what planners believe in new urbanism are trying to do (you can also watch his earlier TED talk, The Walkable City).  Here is information from New Urbanism (dot org) from it’s practioners, including the Congress on New Urbanism.  Lastly, here is an academic article reviewing the critiques of new urbanism with rebuttals.  

Tags: place, neighborhood, urban, planning, transportation, urbanism, scale,  TED, video.

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