Geography Education

An in-depth, multimedia look at climate change, its global impact, and efforts to combat it.

This guide on climate change from the Council on Foreign Relations (independent think tank) covers many of the geopolitical, economic and environmental issues that confront the Earth as global temperatures rise.  Rather than produce a full length feature film, they have organized the this as an interactive video, allowing the user to get short (a couple of minutes) answer to specific questions about the science, foreign policy or economic ramifications of adapting to climate change. 

Tags: climate change, environmental adaption, economic, industry.

"Freedom House has been at the forefront in monitoring threats to media independence since 1980. A free press plays a key role in sustaining and monitoring a healthy democracy, as well as in contributing to greater accountability, good government, and economic development. Most importantly, restrictions on media are often an early indicator that governments intend to assault other democratic institutions." 

This interactive map shows some intriguing spatial patterns about the freedom of press internationally.  What other patterns to you see in matching up with the most free presses in the world (in green)?  How does a free (or not free press) influence the cultural and political values of a country? 

Some buildings and features are so well known they have become icons of place.

This is a great collection of important world landmarks including the pictured Potala Palace in the Tibetan city of Lhasa.  Who wouldn't like to see some of these places?   

Tags: geo-inspiration, tourism, images.

I'm a huge fan of Yann Arthus-Bertrand's artistic aerial photography.  This image of Rio de Janeiro and the favela is a striking one. I am also posting this to show the how easy the website justpaste.it is to use.  Students with no website creation training can produce sharable materials online.  Now this isn't the most professional outlet, but I envision some middle school or high school students producing a class project that can be transformed into something that reaches a bigger audience as it is shared with a broader community. 

Tags: remote sensing, images, art, worldwide, K12, edtech.

The United Nations General Assembly approved an upgraded U.N. status for the Palestinian Authority, despite U.S. and Israeli opposition.

While this may be primarily symbolic, it is still a highly significant move on the part of the United Nations.  65 years ago, the United Nations called for a two-state system.  This map of the vote that I found on Facebook (can't find another source as of yet) is quite intriguing. 

Questions to Ponder: Why might a country choose to abstain?  Can you think of a specific reason why a particular country abstained?  With this new geopolitical fact, how will Israel and Palestine move forward?   

If you were moving abroad, what would you want to know? Find out the results from the largest ever global independent survey of expats. Gain a unique insight into how expat life differs across the globe.

The labor market is increasingly becoming a global market.  These countries are the leading places for expatriate workers based on economic and experience factors (according to a survey by HSBC).  You can adjust the criteria to see how these 30 countries as destinations for workers that aren't afraid to move internationally.

Tags: labor, globalization, industry, economic.

Tags: gender, development, worldwide, poverty.