GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION

War, sectarian violence, and famine have forced more than 50 million people from their homes—the largest number of displaced people since World War II.

Source: storymaps.esri.com

Here are two excellent ESRI StoryMaps about the Syrian refugee crisis; these are two very good examples of a great web maps. 

• ‘The Uprooted‘ (focused more on Syria).
  
• Epicenter of a Deepening Refugee Crisis (puts Syria into a larger global patterns).
  

Tags: GIS, ESRI, mapping, cartography, geospatial, edtech, Syria, political, refugees.

We seem bound to learn the hard way that there really is a limit to how many people the Earth can support.

Source: montrealgazette.com

The ideas of Thomas Malthus have always loomed large; the scope includes some of the biggest issues facing humanity’s continued existence on this planet.  His controversial ideas have been debated for centuries and the way we frame the debate is oftentimes in terms that are derived from Malthusian ideas (for example the terms overpopulation, carrying capacity, and sustainability).  This op-ed written by the President of the Canada’s Population institute provides a way to get student to assess the strengths of an argument and to identify the bias/perspective of the author.  

Questions to Ponder: What did Malthus get right?  What did he get wrong? 

Tags: Demographics, population, APHG, unit 2 population. 

Population density in the US varies wildly from place to place.

Source: www.businessinsider.com

I thought I shared this map or something very similiar a while back in 2013 when it was widely being shared but I couldn’t find it.  Many countries have highly concentrated population distributions (like Canada and Australia) and the United States has pockets of extreme density interspersed throughout the country.  On the flip side, vast swaths of the countries are considered empty in terms of population such as this map that shows 1% of the total U.S. population in 42% of the area. and this one of the world that shows uneven patterns.

Tags: population, density, mapping, visualization.

New study provides one of the strongest cases yet that the planet has entered a new geological epoch

Tags: Anthropocene, development,  land use, environment, environment modify.  

Source: www.theguardian.com

Europe today is a continent of borders. The second-smallest continent in the world has more than 50 distinct, sovereign nation-states. Many of these are part of the European Union. At the core of the EU project is an effort to reduce the power and significance of these borders without actually abolishing them — in theory, an achievable goal. But history is not kind to theoretical solutions.

Today, Europe faces three converging crises that are ultimately about national borders, what they mean and who controls them. These crises appear distinct: Immigration from the Islamic world, the Greek economic predicament, and the conflict in Ukraine would seem to have little to do with each other. But in fact they all derive, in different ways, from the question of what borders mean.

Tags: borders, political, geopolitics, Ukraine, Greece.

Source: www.stratfor.com

My final project for Dr. Dixon’s Geography 200 course at Rhode Island College.

Source: www.youtube.com

When discussing decolonization in Africa, I’ve always thought exclusively about the impact of the colonized country, or maybe the country that was losing grasp on its former empire.  Until this student project, I have never considered the global lives of those who worked for the colonial governments and had their whole worlds upended.  This isn’t to say that colonialism should have continued, but it shows that any change will have unintended consequences as it disrupts the status quo. 

Tags: Africa, Angola, historical, colonialism, migration.

David Cameron says a deal with EU counterparts is enough for him to recommend the UK stays in the union, and he will present it to his cabinet on Saturday.

Source: www.bbc.com

The European Union at one time seemed as though it would continue to further and further integrate European politics and economics; Many still see  great value in EU membership but critics fear that enhanced cooperation was going to head down the road to the formation of a European superstate and further entanglements.  With talk of possibly leaving the EU and a referendum on whether the UK should stay in the EU or not, the EU was offered some extra special exemptions for the UK.  This is a very interesting developing story, one that might impact many regional supranational organizations.  

Tags: Europe, supranationalism, economic, political.

“Rural America now accounts for just 16 percent of the nation’s population, the lowest ever. The latest 2010 census numbers hint at an emerging America where, by mid-century, city boundaries become indistinct and rural areas grow ever less relevant. Many communities could shrink to virtual ghost towns as they shutter businesses and close down schools, demographers say.”

Source: www.foxnews.com

1910: 72% of USA rural

2010: 16% of USA rural

This is an old article, but it highlights the stark reversal that has profoundly reshaped our society.  The patterns noted in Peirce Lewis’s 1972 classic article “Small Town in Pennsylvania” have just continued and accelerated. 

Question to Ponder: What forces are driving the change?  What other parts of society are impacted by this shift?

Tag: rural, migration, USA, census.

Rio de Janeiro’s bid for the Summer Games featured an official commitment to cleaner waters. But with less than six months to go, trash and contamination continue to lurk.

Source: espn.go.com

ESPN is covering this topic only because of the upcoming Olympics, but underneath the veneer of a sports article are some weighty geographic issues that loom large for Brazil.  

Tags: pollution, economic, Brazil, South America, urban ecology.