Source: www.xkcd.com
America has joined Saudi Arabia and Russia as one of the world’s leading oil producers. Forecasters predicted this would usher in a golden age. It hasn’t worked out that way.
Tags: environment, resources, economic.
Source: www.npr.org
“Follow America’s favorite vegetable from field to factory — to see how potatoes grow and how they’re turned into chips.”
Source: www.pbs.org
This 5 minute video is a good introduction to the potato, it’s hearth, diffusion, population impacts, nutritional profile and industrial production. The geography of food goes far beyond the kitchen and there are more episodes in the “How Does it Grow?” series to show that.
Tags: food, economic, food production, agribusiness, industry, video, agriculture.
Flyover Country uses maps and data from various geological and paleontological databases to identify and give information on the landscape passing beneath a plane. The user will see features tagged on a map corresponding to the ground below. To explain the features in depth, the app relies on cached Wikipedia articles. Since it works solely with a phone’s GPS, there’s no need for a user to purchase in-flight wifi. Sitting in your window seat, you can peer down on natural features like glaciers and man-made features, such as mines, and read articles about them at the same time.
Tags: mobility, transportation, technology, physical, geology.
Source: www.smithsonianmag.com
When racist towns used to lynch people, these guides helped keep black travelers safe
Source: www.washingtonpost.com
I have mentioned the Green Book before, but now there is an interactive mapping application that let’s users map out a trip in the United States during the Jim Crow era. 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, ethnicity.
” Also see our video, Will The European Union Fall Apart? http://testu.be/1UYWZPm “
Source: www.youtube.com
The European Union at one time seemed as though it would continue to further and further integrate European politics and economics. With talk of possibly leaving the EU and a referendum on whether the UK should stay in the EU or not, the EU offered some extra special exemptions for the UK. For a more in depth coverage, see this PBS News Hour video.
Tags: Europe, supranationalism, economic, political.
Every state but two were warmer than normal and all six New England states set winter records.
Tags: physical, weather and climate, climate change.
Source: www.washingtonpost.com
“The core idea of Walk Appeal is that people walk longest and most often in places that entice them, but rarely walk just because they’re told they ought to. Some Walk Appeal factors are measurable, while others are immeasurable, and it has long been clear that Walk Appeal is the best predictor of the viability of neighborhood businesses.”
Source: www.originalgreen.org
What is a reasonable distance to walk around town? Research shows that cities with improved sidewalks, less parking lots, attractive storefronts and other amenities that encourage walking. If walking the urban environment is and of itself an experience worth having and makes the person feel like a flâneur, experiencing the city on a deeper level, automotive transport goes down and walking goes up. Urban infrastructure is more important for most people than distance in deciding whether to get in the car or walk down the street (for distances under 2 miles). Bottom line: neighborhoods that have an appealing sense of place are more walkable.
Tags: urban, place, transportation, planning, urbanism, architecture.
“Art meets science in a new geographical profiling study from Queen Mary University of London, which probably just revealed the identity of the art world’s most and least iconic figure.”
Source: i-d.vice.com
I’m deeply ambivalent about this. The spatial analyst in me loves see that mapping patterns can uncover truths but the cultural geographer in me feels sad that anonymity has been removed since that led to a greater mystique to his subverse, place-based art installations. You can read the article to find out who he is, but I prefer the Banksy of my mind’s eye.
Tags: place, spatial, images, art, landscape, socioeconomic, class.
GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION 