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Rescooped by Claire Jones from Geography Education onto CJones: GIS - GoogleEarth - Cartography |
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Ever since my first visit to to Disneyland, I was intrigued by the the ride 'It's a Small World After All." As a youngster, it was an opportunity to get in cool boat ride that I always regretted half way into the ride once the song was firmly chiseled into my mind. This blog post explores the curious and fascinating geographical imaginations, the visions of folk cultures and global harmony behind this Disneyland ride. This fabulous map charts that vision.
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This map is a fantastic geovisualization that maps the spatial patterns of languages used on the social media platform Twitter. This map was in part inspired by a Twitter map of Europe. While most cities would be expected to be linguistically homogenous, but London's cosmopolitan nature and large pockets of immigrants influence the distribution greatly.
Tags: social media, language, neighborhood, visualization, cartography. Via Seth Dixon 
Betty Denise's comment,
November 7, 2012 1:13 PM
Thank you – again – for your tremendous partnership
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Amazing things about Google Earth - news, features, tips, technology, and applications... Delete the scoop?
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TED Talks Map designer Aris Venetikidis is fascinated by the maps we draw in our minds as we move around a city -- less like street maps, more like schematics or wiring diagrams, abstract images of relationships between places.
This video touches on numerous themes that are crucial to geographers including: 1) how our minds arrange spatial information, 2) how to best graphically represent spatial information in a useful manner for your audience and 3) how mapping a place can be the impetus for changing outdated systems. This is the story of how a cartographer working to improve a local transportation system map, which in turn, started city projects to improve the infrastructure and public utilities in Dublin, Ireland. This cartographer argues that the best map design for a transport system needs to conform to how on cognitive mental mapping works more so than geographic accuracy (like so many subway maps do).
Tags: transportation, urban, mapping, cartography, planning, TED, video, unit 7 cities. Via Seth Dixon 
Jesse Gauthier's comment,
October 14, 2012 3:42 PM
When trying to graphically represent spatial information in a useful manner for your particular audience, you will have a lot to take into consideration. How familiar are the travelers with the area you map out? Are there visuals to precisely mark on the map so that will they accurately correspond to the area?
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By moving the slider, the user can compare 1990 false-color Landsat views (left) with recent true-color imagery (right). Humans are increasingly transforming Earth’s surface—through direct activities such as farming, mining, and building, and indirectly by altering its climate. This interactive feature includes 12 places that have experienced significant change since 1990. This is an user-friendly way to compare remote sensing images over time. Pictured above is the Aral Sea, which is and under-the-radar environmental catastrophe in Central Asia that has its roots in the Soviet era's (mis)management policies.
Tags: remote sensing, land use, environment, geospatial, environment modify, esri, unit 1 Geoprinciples, zbestofzbest. Via Seth Dixon 
Lisa Fonseca's comment,
October 9, 2012 9:19 PM
On the left side of the ARAL SEA, KAZAKHSTAN photo the landsat view provides a large deep blue beautiful lake but the right side gives the actual size of the lake which seems to be decreasing drastically in size. MOUNT KILIMANJARO photo provides a small view of the snow and ice, which correctly describes scientists theory of snow and ice drastically disappearing. COLUMBIA GLACIER, ALASKA UNITED STATES, the prediction of the left side states glaciers melting would be more drastic then the way it actually is in the visual to the right. GULF OF FONSECA, HONDURAS, the false color view shows more area being used by shrimp farms. COASTAL MALAYSIA, the right side image with the more recent information gives a more visible view of the large oil palm plantations what they should now determine is the possible destruction to the rain forest that should be foreseen. SANTA CRUZ, BOLIVIA, large parts of land have been converted to cropland. The image of 1990 demonstrates many changes that are evident to see. ISAHAYA BAY, JAPAN, the image to the left doesn't allow the human eye to view any detail, the image to the right provides a view of where the land has been divided into agriculture. MOUNTAIN TOP REMOVAL, WEST VIRGINIA UNITED STATES, the mountain tops have been altered little by little all mountain tops will have been striped and the area effected will become much much larger then viewed in this image. DONGGUAN, CHINA, wow, this image shows population and industrial increase drastically over time. PALM SPRINGS CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES, the image to the right provides a much better descriptive view. LOUDOUN COUNTRY VIRGINIA, UNITED STATES, this is another image where the population increase is greatly shown.
Derek Ethier's comment,
October 18, 2012 1:32 AM
The Aral Sea is literally shrinking before our eyes and people are doing very little to stop it. Due to years of poor farming techniques (growing cotton and rice in this dry climate) the Aral Sea is literally being sucked dry by these crops. People can do very little about it because growing these crops represents their well being. It is a Catch 22 situation...
Sam Capron's curator insight,
March 27, 9:43 PM
As I sat in class, and Professor Dixon began to tell us about humans changing the world around them I was not surprised, after all I have heard about how we caused global warming by destroying the ozone layer and we cut down trees ect. However what I was not prepared for was the speed with which we reshape the world. In a span of about 20 years we have destroyed entire ecosystems, and it is to late to do anything about it. The Aral Sea is dead, and it would be very difficult to nearly impossible to fix it now.
On top of all that damage, we also learned in class that the area where sea water used to be, but is now land because of the receding water is so salty and baron that it is wasteland and not fit for any type of use. When that water dries up, there will be none left for the nearby countries to utilize. Delete the scoop?
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This is another old classic image that I might have shared earlier but it merits repeating. As Salvatore Natoli (a leader in geography education) once said, "In our society we unconsciously equate size with importance and even power." This is one reason why many people have underestimated the true size of Africa relative to places that they view as more important or more powerful. Tags: mapping, Africa, perspective, images. Via Seth Dixon 
Ricardo Salaya Monsell's comment,
November 5, 2012 1:31 PM
Although I do not think they do to "trick", it is true that confuses many people and makes them believe in a world disproportionate. (Apologies for my terrible google-English)
Sam Capron's curator insight,
April 3, 11:58 PM
This picture is great because while most people understand that Africa is a big place, most do not realize how big. Comparing the size of Africa is this visual manor makes it more real than just seeing a square mileage statistic. 
Louis Culotta's comment,
April 5, 12:23 PM
it's amazing that such a large land mass can't find any long standing peace from any place you go to.
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Much like sites that you can rate items up or down, you can rate the best aerial photography via Google Earth screen shots. There are some beautiful images and places to be discovered through this site. The physical and human landscapes are both intermingled in this fantastic collection of images…be careful, it can be amazingly addictive. One this blog post I've added 13 of my favorite cultural and physical landscapes on to http://www.stratocam.com Via Seth Dixon
Jesse Gauthier's comment,
September 2, 2012 12:56 PM
These satellite images are truly spectacular! They are beautiful and, yes, addicting to look at! I found it interesting that the images of manmade cities/landscapes had similar design and curvature to the images of Mother Nature's oceans and forestry.
Don Brown Jr's comment,
September 3, 2012 10:51 PM
Visually on a ground level it is hard to conceptualize the significance of the surrounding landscape. How people alter our surroundings can reveal a lot about the history and culture of a particular society. Although the architecture at Vlagtwedde in the Netherlands is quite stunning from an aerial view, this fortress was designed to repel invaders and control the area. Even if you don’t know much about this country’s history, this image reveals that it was most likely not a peaceful place in the 16th and 17th century.
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This is a brief introduction to what geographic information systems are. This is not a tutorial on how to use it, but a conceptual overview on the potential uses and applications for GIS.
Tags: GIS, video, Unit 1 GeoPrinciples, geospatial, mapping and location. Via Seth Dixon Delete the scoop?
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This is a clip from the TV show West Wing (Season 2-Episode 16) where cartography plays a key role in the plot. In this episode the fictitious (but still on Facebook) group named "the Organization of Cartographers for Social Justice" is campaigning to have the President officially endorse the Gall-Peters Projection in schools and denounce the Mercator projection. The argument being that children will grow up thinking some places are not as important because they are minimized by the map projection. While a bit comical, the cartographic debate is quite informative even if it was designed to appear as though the issue was trivial.
Questions to Ponder: Why do map projections matter? Is one global map projection inherently better than the rest?
Tags: Mapping, geospatial, video, visualization. Via Seth Dixon 
Lydia Blevins's comment,
September 13, 2012 6:17 AM
I think it is very important that we start using more accurate maps. In school, the maps we use are so different from how the world actually is. I agree that children will grow up thinking some places are less important because they are minimized by the map projection.
Greg Atkinson's comment,
October 10, 2012 12:31 PM
Great clip. I use it in my WRG class as a comedic introduction to the power of projection.
Mary Patrick Schoettinger's curator insight,
December 18, 2012 3:01 PM
This absolutely the best video clip for SS teachers EVER! Delete the scoop?
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Print your own customized, place-based envelopes using Google Maps imagery.
UPDATE: Noted UK geography blogger Alan Parkinson has created lesson plans that follow a similar trajectory, getting student to work with Digimaps. The lesson plan is available here in PDF format.
Tags: art, google, mapping. Via Seth Dixon Delete the scoop?
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Technology bridges distance and borders. Individuals today can keep in touch with their friends and family in completely new ways — regardless of where they live. We explored these internatio...
People can be digitally connected with anyone around the world these days, without any limitations by distance or culture. Yet, by analyzing peoples social networks, it is clear that geographic factors are still a crucial factor in mediating our scoial interactions. The internet can, but doesn't fully conquer space. Tags: socialmedia, worldwide, mapping. Via Seth Dixon 
Seth Dixon's curator insight,
January 23, 4:08 PM
People can be digitally connected with anyone around the world these days, without any limitations by distance or culture. Yet, by analyzing peoples social networks, it is clear that geographic factors are still a crucial factor in mediating our scoial interactions. The internet can, but doesn't fully conquer space. Tags: socialmedia, worldwide, mapping. Delete the scoop?
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We are a society that is reliant on modern navigational devices. This is an interesting article that argues for keeping modern equipment, but asks us not to eliminate older technologies in our haste to embrace the shiny and new. "Technology as great as it is should never be a replacement for skills, but a tool used to assist you."
Tags: GPS, technology, spatial. Via Seth Dixon
melissa stjean's comment,
September 15, 2012 4:15 PM
Driving in New York City is as scary as it gets with all the craziness going on everywhere. When my GPS signal decided to go out was not a fun time, thankfully in my car i had a real map of the city to come to my rescue. I totally agree with this article because although new technology is great, it can give out on you at any time. So knowing how to read and use real maps is crucial when driving in new territories.
Jeff F's comment,
September 17, 2012 6:49 PM
I love gps, however, I always look at a map before hand and get an idea of what the major streets in the area are. GPS also sometimes does not take into effect things like bridges being down. Two months ago, I was trying to find some place and my gps kept trying to lead me to a bridge which was closed. I ended up zooming out and looking at the map to know where the street was I was looking for. I then managed to find a route that lead around the bridge.
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Ever since my first visit to to Disneyland, I was intrigued by the the ride 'It's a Small World After All." As a youngster, it was an opportunity to get in cool boat ride that I always regretted half way into the ride once the song was firmly chiseled into my mind. This blog post explores the curious and fascinating geographical imaginations, the visions of folk cultures and global harmony behind this Disneyland ride. This fabulous map charts that vision. Via Seth Dixon
melissa stjean's comment,
September 4, 2012 12:20 PM
"It's a small world" is what thousands if not millions of kids hear on this ride a year. They are driven through the continents and are greated by happy faces of the natives to that land. The ride is somewhat dumbed down for kids, showing them what "its really like" in these countries, but the truth is most of the these countries are not clean, and happy as Disney makes them out to be. Though the ride is a good step to open kids minds about the world, but when they grow up they realize that its not that small, happy world afterall.
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There are many amazing examples of artists who turn to cartography and geography for inspiration. Whether through the lens of a camera, paint, ...
This series of cartographically-inspired art works changes how we look at maps. Some of these artists also make us think of places that are on the Earth as explicitly "mappable" features. I think the Google Maps push-pin in the city center is my favorite. Which do you prefer?
Tags: art, mapping, place, cartography. Via Seth Dixon Delete the scoop?
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MapsofWorld.com provides free World map, high resolution digital map of the World, vector World maps & World Atlas for iPad, iPhone & Android phones. Maps of continents, countries and cities for students, teachers & travelers alike. Via Nicola Cara Damiani Delete the scoop?
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Learn about the high-tech treasure hunting game being played around the world by adventure seekers! Learn more at http://www.geocaching.com Subscribe to this...
Geocaching is great way to get people outdoors, use geospatial technologies and have fun with the whole family.
Tags: GPS, edtech, geospatial, technology, location. Via Seth Dixon Delete the scoop?
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What are all these news reporters and school administrators doing in my classroom? Monday, September 24, 2012 was most certainly an interesting day in my Mapping Our Changing World (GEOG 201) class...
One of my students applied some mapping skills and spatial analysis to a string of unsolved bank robberies in Rhode Island. After 7 months of eluding capture with at least 8 robberies under his belt, the "bearded bandit" was aprehended less then 48 hours after my student handed over his analysis to a contact in the police department. Coincidence? I think not! Great work Nic, showing that spatial thinking and geographic skills can be applied to a wide range of disciplines and activities. Tags: RhodeIsland, GIS, mapping, GeographyEducation, edtech. Via Seth Dixon 
Elizabeth Allen's comment,
September 25, 2012 8:07 PM
Wow! Awesome story. Professor Dixon thanks for sharing this. Nic must be thrilled and you must be proud!
Matt Mallinson's comment,
September 26, 2012 10:11 AM
Awesome presentation of it all, it was very interesting.
Victoria Morgia Jamolod-Umbo's comment,
September 27, 2012 8:58 AM
This is a great development! Today, there are so many unsolved crimes because of lack of investigative skills of our investigating authorities. So, if this new way of solving crimes can really help victims to attain justice, then we have to support it, by all means....
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Earlier I have posted the classic image of "Earth Lights at Night," and discussed the classroom uses of the image. This cartogram helps take that analysis one step further. This cartogram helps students to visualize the magnitude of population (with the cartogram adjusting area for population) and then to see the patterns of energy use, global consumption and urbanization with in a new light.
Tags: remote sensing, worldwide, consumption, poverty, population, spatial, political, regions. Via Seth Dixon
Matt Mallinson's comment,
October 1, 2012 11:29 AM
This map is obviously not the actual size of countries, but it is in a way. The populations of China and India are so great compared to the rest of the world and this map shows that.
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One of a number of large wildfires that have affected northern California in 2012, the Chips fire burned more than 75,000 acres by the time firefighters had contained it.
2012 is going to go down in United States history as the year with the most acres burned in a single year (statistics only go back to 1960). The two featured images were taken earlier this month to display a Northern California wildfire; both with the same spatial resolution and acquired for the same instrument (Advanced Land Imager on EO-1 satellite), yet they are quite distinct. One shows an aerial photograph, displaying exactly what standard visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum (showing us what our eyes would normally see). The other image displays a false color (near infrared) image.
Questions to ponder: what advantages does each image have for analyzing the fire damage? Drawbacks? How does the data from both images work together to create a more complete picture of the situation?
Tags: remote sensing, images, environment, land use, disasters, biogeography. Via Seth Dixon 
's comment, September 17, 2012 10:16 AM
These images are very similar and different one you can see the smoke but you cant really see much of the damage on the land. where as the infrared image shows the areas that have been damaged but also makes the areas more easily able to depict the different features.
Lisa Fonseca's comment,
September 17, 2012 10:22 AM
The first image displays a better visual of exactly where the fire damaged the land, the second image doesn't provide a clear visual to someone, the land effected is foggy. If I was going to visit this specific area in Northern California I would much rather use the first aerial image.
Jesse Gauthier's comment,
September 17, 2012 10:31 AM
The first image gives a good spatial shot of where the exact hot spots are located that cannot be seen by the naked eye. The second photo will give you a spatial view of what you can actually see. Both are needed to put out the hot spot because they each will provide two different solutions to stop the burning acres.
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Create QR Codes for GPS Coordinates to Create Scavenger Hunts...
Not everyone was access to a full class set of GPS units. As more students have smart phone capabilities, this is just one idea on how to leverage that technology. Via Seth Dixon Delete the scoop?
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This blogpost answers the (often unasked) question: What would the world be like if the land masses were spread out the same way as now - only rotated by an angle of 90 degrees? While purely hypothetical, this is an exercise in applying real geographic thinking to different situations. Anything that you would correct?
Tags: weather climate, geography, GeographyEducation, unit 1 GeoPrinciples, physical. Via Seth Dixon 
's comment, September 5, 2012 11:41 PM
well!!!
I'll tell you that it's why God created Mother Nature. maybe what we think is bad now in nature can be worse for the the Earth and human being... I think if the ground is moved 90 degree, many natural phenomena would happened in many regions of the Earth which would be harm to people, plants and animals that live in those regions. Plus, the population of poor nation would not be prepared for those climate changes.... many people would die or they have to move from those regions.
Jeff F's comment,
September 6, 2012 12:50 AM
This looks like a map from the classic NES game Dragon Warrior II only flipped upside down. #nerd
Anyways, I think the most densely populated areas would be around the central ocean with New York and London being primate cities of their respected hemispheres. Given that that the central ocean area is in an equatorial region, agriculture would likely not be very prosperous in these regions. Instead, I imagine New York becoming the center of an imperial superpower. Seeing as the most fertile regions of both South and North America are in temperate areas, agriculture would be a dominating industry. The northern hemisphere on the other I hand I imagine would be largely undeveloped and rural. The "breadbaskets" of this hemispher are located much further inland from the central ocean. 
Ian Roberts's comment,
September 11, 2012 8:57 PM
First off I would like to say travel to Europe would be much easier and the Pacific Ocean grew even larger. One thing that really got me wondering was whether the world would be northern hemisphere centered or southern hemisphere centered. Currently, there are many more people in the northern hemisphere, so things like the summer olympics are held in our summer, their winter. BUt with the world turned ninety degrees, the population will be much more similar. The north will probably still have more people, but the south has America. It would be interesting to see how they would decide that conflict.
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In the Mid-Morning Plenary Session of the ESRI User Conference, it was apparent that students can learn in meaningful ways by applying GIS to real-world situations.
Tags: GIS, edtech, GeographyEducation. Via Seth Dixon Delete the scoop?
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Who says you can't integrate geography and real world applications into the math curriculum? Paul Bouke has scoured the Earth searching for fractals in the natural environment and created this amazingly artistic remote sensing gallery (with KMZ files for viewing in Google Earth as well).
Tags: Remote sensing, art, math, google, physical, landforms, geomorphology. Via Seth Dixon
Seth Dixon's comment,
September 9, 2012 8:40 PM
Thanks for sharing so many great link on FB and have been able to use several. I'm glad that the sharing can go in both directions.
Ann Kissinger Wurst's comment,
September 9, 2012 8:44 PM
Seth - I am hardly worthy of YOUR currating! Hope to meet you in person at NCGE and get a picture of us for Facebook. :-)
's comment, September 10, 2012 11:21 AM
This is so beautiful. Fractals are an amazing phenomenon, whether you are an artist, geographer, or mathematician. I love being able to see fractals in plants or feel them as air travels through my lungs.
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What would you do in 75 minutes to introduce your colleagues to spatial thinking and analysis? Recently I had the opportunity to do just that, when my Esri colleague Laura Bowden and I conducted a spatial thinking technical workshop at the 2012 Esri International User Conference. I share our outline and reflections in the hopes that it will be of assistance as you plan your own workshops and classes.
First, we were greatly encouraged by the inclusion of such a workshop in the conference for what we believe was the first time. Second, we decided to structure the workshop by introducing how several scholars have defined spatial thinking, plus our own reflections from the standpoint of GIS in education, and followed this with demonstrations of how to use spatial thinking in grappling with real world situations and data using several different tools. In essence, then, we sought to demonstrate “research into practice.”..... Via Seth Dixon Delete the scoop?
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In the Winnie the Pooh Movie "Pooh's Grand Adventure," the character Rabbit has absolute confidence in the printed word and especially the map. Questions to ponder: How much do we trust any given map? How much should we trust a map (or the printed word)? What makes a document reliable or unreliable?
Tags: mapping, perspective, K12, video. Via Seth Dixon
Seth Dixon's comment,
September 15, 2012 3:47 PM
And yes, this was found by me being a Dad, not a geographer. But it was the geographer in the Dad that recognized a teaching moment.
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