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Lights of Human Activity Shine in NASA’s Image of Earth at Night

NASA scientists have just released the first new global map of Earth at night since 2012. This nighttime look at our home planet, dubbed the Black Marble, provides researchers with a unique perspective of human activities around the globe. By studying Earth at night, researchers can investigate how cities expand, monitor light intensity to estimate energy use and economic activity, and aid in disaster response.

Source: www.youtube.com

NASA scientists are releasing new global maps of Earth at night, providing the clearest yet composite view of the patterns of human settlement across our planet.  You can download the image at a good resolution (8 MB jpg) or at a great resolution (266 MB jpg) to explore at your leisure.  

 

Tags: mapping, perspective, images, geospatial.

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Syria’s war: Who is fighting and why [Updated]

“After four-plus years of fighting, Syria’s war has killed at least hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions. And, though it started as a civil war, it’s become much more than that. It’s a proxy war that has divided much of the Middle East, and has drawn in both Russia and the United States. To understand how Syria got to this place, it helps to start at the beginning and watch it unfold.”

Source: www.youtube.com

Over a year ago I posted a previous version of this video highlighting the complexities behind the Syrian war.  Much has happened since then and this updated version adds more detail and includes a very helpful timeline to show how more internal and external forces became involved in the fighting.  This is an incredibly complicated geopolitical situation because of all the regional and international players involved.  

 

Tags: Syria, war, conflict, political, geopolitics.

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The global food waste scandal

Western countries throw out nearly half of their food, not because it’s inedible — but because it doesn’t look appealing. Tristram Stuart delves into the shocking data of wasted food, calling for a more responsible use of global resources.

Source: www.youtube.com

No one should be surprised that more developed societies are more wasteful societies.  It is not just personal wasting of food at the house and restaurants that are the problem.  Perfectly edible food is thrown out due to size (smaller than standards but perfectly normal), cosmetics (Bananas that are shaped ‘funny’) and costumer preference (discarded bread crust).  This is an intriguing perceptive on our consumptive culture, but it also is helpful in framing issues such as sustainability and human and environmental interactions in a technologically advanced societies that are often removed form the land where the food they eat originates. 

 

Tags: food, agriculture, consumption, sustainability, TED, video, unit 5 agriculture.

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Atlas Obscura: A travel guide like no other

“A popular website and now a bestselling book, Atlas Obscura is a guide to many of the world’s most unusual places. Serena Altschul discusses some of the awe-inspiring destinations with two of the guide’s creators, Josh Foer and Dylan Thuras.”

 

Tags: place, tourism, video, geo-inspiration.

Source: www.youtube.com

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Discovering All 59 National Parks

“Conor Knighton is winding up his year-long journey through our National Parks. He’s returned with a backpack full of picture postcards, along with some thoughts.”

Source: www.youtube.com

This last summer, my family went to five national parks on our cross-country journeys.  I love exploring the wonders and beauties in our National Parks, so this man’s 2016 voyage to see all 59 National Parks makes me incredibly jealous.  My grandparents took me to Yellowstone and Yosemite when I was young.  These trips inspired in me a deep awe for the wonders of this Earth.  So go discover someplace new to you this year.  

 

Tags: place, tourism, video, geo-inspiration.

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Easiest Languages to Learn

“Learning another language is a good thing, but with only a small percentage of Americans, it seems most of us can never dream of achieving this common goal.”

Source: www.youtube.com

This video’s humor isn’t always classroom appropriate, but it conveys several important ideas about languages.  First, languages that are part of the same language family are easier to learn (leading to more cultural diffusion among speakers).  Second, not all languages are equally important on a global scale even if they are similar (some languages are ‘docked’ on this list). This list is specifically for English speakers: 

  1. Dutch
  2. Frisian
  3. Afrikaans
  4. Esperanto
  5. Norwegian
  6. Swedish
  7. Italian
  8. French
  9. Portuguese
  10. Spanish

 

Tags: language, culture, diffusion.

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GPS Essentials

“GPS Essentials is the most complete GPS tool on Android Market: Navigate, manage waypoints, tracks, routes, build your own dashboard from 45 widgets.”

Source: www.youtube.com

GPS Essentials is a great, free app for a smart phone to create some simple, geospatial data.  Need to create a GPX file with various waypoints (that imports nicely into ArcGIS)?  Try GPS essentials (or if you only need linear data about where you’ve been, Map My Run works if you don’t mind needing a desktop to download the GPX file). 

 

Tags: mapping, GPS, edtech, video.

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Possibilism: Crash Course #2

“Possibilism, while accepting that physical environments have some affect on the outcomes for human social orders, they’re not the only factor by a long shot. Today, we’re talking about human agency, and the Human Geographers who developed the ideas that make up possibilism. Individuals and groups make the decisions that shape their societies, and while the world sometimes shapes these social orders, people also increasingly affect their world in return.”

Source: www.youtube.com

Just like that first Crash Course video on  environmental determinism, this video on environmental possibilism treats complex ideas in a cut-and-dry manner.  All the videos in Crash Course human geography series have an incredibly quick pace and these particular ideas need nuancing and (for most students) time to frame the factors and issues at hand. So if this is someone’s first introduction to environmental possibilism or determinism, they are likely to be both overwhelmed and given a slanted perspective on the topic.  I’m still holding out hope for when this series reaches the thematic content of human geography instead of the theoretical underpinnings of past geographical philosophies.

 

Tags: crash course, environmental determinism, environment, APHG, video.    

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Environmental Determinism: Crash Course #1

Today we’re talking about how Human Geography has been practiced in the past, how it hitched its wagon to some really bad ideas, and how that kind of thinking still persists in the world today. Basically, we’re starting with a lesson in how not to Human Geographize. Which I don’t think is a real word.

Source: www.youtube.com

This isn’t exactly what I was hoping for when I heard news of that Crash Course was producing a series of human geography videos, but still has tons of value.  This video on environmental determinism will raise as many questions as it answers.  Personally, I think it is too dismissive of geographers (such as Jared Diamond) than is fair, but there is lot of good in the video and enough in it to feel that this series has some strong potential for the future.  For APHG, it also make be feel optimistic about the future that “we’ve made it to the big leagues” in others eyes and are here to stay.    

 

Tags: crash course, environmental determinism, unit 1 GeoPrinciples, environment, APHG, video.    

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