GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

Crafting a Sense of Place

“Talk about creating a sense of place! This neighborhood in #Covington draws on German roots to create a restaurant/pub district. Even the non-German restaurants in the area evoke an old world cultural landscape aesthetic in a way that makes the neighborhood appealing to visitors and prospective residents. #culturallandscape #placemaking.”

Source: www.instagram.com

I love exploring the cultural landscapes in and around Cincinnati every year during the #APHGreading.

Tags: neighborhood, landscape, urban, place, social media, APHG, Cincinnati.

May 31, 2016 0

VIDEO: Saving the art of mapmaking

“If you’re heading out on the road for your vacation this year, you’ll probably get directions from a GPS or navigational system. Does that mean that the traditional map is a relic of the past? Mark Albert hits the road to find out.”

Source: www.cbsnews.com

This video is designed for a general news audience and it nicely shows the public how cartography is not rendered unimportant in the era of digital maps, but has become all the more useful. I could see this video as useful resource to share with parents who are worried that studying geography won’t lead to careers.

Tags: GIS, video, mapping, cartography, geospatial, technology.

May 31, 2016 0

Cutting Haiti’s Forests

The major environmental problem facing Haiti’s biodiversity is explained, including video of tree-cutting within a national park.

Source: www.youtube.com

Deforestation does not happen in a vacuum–it occurs in an economic, political, and historical context. Having successfully staged a slave revolution against France in 1806, they were ostracized from the global community (since the powers that be did not want to see slave rebellions or colonial uprising elsewhere) and were forced to look within for their own energy resources. The nation’s forests were (and still are) converted into charcoal, leading to long-term environmental problems such as soil erosion, flooding, and habitat destruction for many species. All of this increased increased Haiti’s disaster vulnerability in the earthquake of 2010.

Tags: Haiti, biogeography, environment, ecology, video, poverty, development, economic, labor.

May 30, 2016 0

Why Africa’s migrant crisis makes no sense to outsiders

“Violence and insecurity are so bad that other war-torn countries have become sites of refuge.”

In 2015, nearly 100,000 Ethiopians and Somalis traveled by boat to Yemen, one of the world’s most dangerous countries. Last year, nearly 5,000 citizens of Congo, which is fighting powerful rebel groups, were seeking refuge in the Central African Republic, itself torn apart by civil war. And yet 10,000 Burundians have fled their country’s own growing civil unrest for Congo. Thousands of Nigerians escaping the extremist Islamist group Boko Haram have gone to Chad, where different strains of that same insurgency conduct frequent deadly attacks.

Developing countries have long taken in a disproportionate number of the world’s refugees — roughly 80 percent, according to the United Nations. But even for migration experts and relief workers, the willingness of refugees to leave one war for another is shocking. It’s also proving an enormous challenge for humanitarian agencies, which are already overstretched and often not equipped to welcome refugees in countries that are still racked by conflict.

Tags: refugees, Africa, migration, conflict, political, war.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

May 29, 2016 0

Haiti: From Recovery to Sustainable Development

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“Since the 2010 earthquake, Haiti has successfully pulled through the humanitarian recovery phase and seen significant socioeconomic gains. Yet as Haiti moves toward long-term, sustainable development, the country faces significant challenges. The political system remains fragile, sustainable jobs are scarce, and the environment is still as vulnerable now as it was then.”

Source: link.brightcove.com

While this is primarily a promotional campaign for the UNDP’s efforts in Haiti, it nicely contextualizes the problems that Haiti faces before discussing how to improve the situation. Some keys for the future include:

Governance and Rule of Law
Recovery and Poverty Reduction
Disaster Risk Reduction
Environmental Management
Medical Outbreak Management

Tags: disasters, Haiti, NGOs, poverty, development, video.

May 28, 2016 0

Megacities, not nations, are the world’s dominant, enduring social structures

“Cities are mankind’s most enduring and stable mode of social organization, outlasting all empires and nations over which they have presided. Today cities have become the world’s dominant demographic and economic clusters.”

Source: qz.com

This map is a sneak peek preview from the new book Connectography by Parag Khanna. This main point of the book and article is that economic and social connectivity is the new driving force is of geopolitics, not just global economics. Supply chains matter more than borders and the largest cities are the controlling nodes of those supply chains.

Tags: political, globalization, urban, economic.

May 27, 2016 0

12-Year-Old Wins Geographic Bee in Nail-Biter—How Would You Do?

Students demonstrate an impressive command of maps and world affairs in thrilling competition.

Tags: National Geographic.

Source: news.nationalgeographic.com

May 26, 2016 0

For First Time In 130 Years, More Young Adults Live With Parents Than With Partners

“For the first time in more than 130 years, Americans ages 18-34 are more likely to live with their parents than in any other living situation, according to a new analysis by the Pew Research Center. Less educated young adults are also more likely to live with their parents than are their college-educated counterparts — no surprise, Pew notes, given the financial prospects in today’s economy. Black and Hispanic young people, compared with white people, are in the same situation. But the overall trend is the same for every demographic group — living with parents is increasingly common. Still, young Americans are still less likely to live with their parents than their European counterparts, Pew says.

Source: www.npr.org

I find that the best statistics have great explanatory power, make sense when placed in the right context, and STILL manage to leave you amazed. These stats fit that bill for me and as the school year is ending, it’s a milestone that doesn’t mean what it did for generations past. 32.1% of young adults in the U.S live with parents, and 48.1% of young adults in the European Union Union live with parents.

Questions to Ponder: What are some contributing factors to this trend in the United States and Europe? What does this say about housing costs, economic, and cultural conditions?

Tags: socioeconomic, housing, statistics, population, cultural norms, culture.