Geography Education

This more clearly shows the regional restructuring of the global economy than just about anything I've ever seen, especially manufacturing.  The 8 largest and busiest ports in the world are all in East or Southeast Asia (and 11 of the top 13).  A quick glance at the historical charts will show that most of these were relatively minor ports that have exploded in the last 20 years.  

Tags: transportation, globalization, diffusion, East Asia, industry, economic.

John Snow's cholera map is often noted as a prime example of using spatial thinking to solve a scientific problem.  Here are a variety of resources to explore this classic example.  Here is an article that highlights the spatial thinking that produced this map, with KML files and in Google Fusion Tables.  See also these online GIS layers of Dr. Snow's famous map. 

Tags: medical, models, spatial, mapping.   

When I was a graduate student at Penn State, I was introduced to some great people and programs and I'm glad to see that the institution has continued to excel and be a leader.  You have probably heard of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course) and been interested in seeing how this might change higher education in the future.  This MOOC is a free 5-week course designed to be an introduction to mapping, GIS and geospatial technologies so you don't need to be a specialists with a mapping background: it's for beginners.  I know that many geography teachers tell their students about GIS, but are afraid to teach with GIS because they are worried that it will be too hard.  This is an easy on-ramp to 21st century geospatial tools and any geography teacher hoping to modernize their skillset would do well to take this summer course fromthe Program of Online Geospatial Education at Penn State, taught by Dr. Anthony Robinson.  For more information on this, see this annoucement from Directions Magazine and from Penn State News.    

Tags: GIS, teacher training, mapping, cartography, geospatial, edtech, geography education, unit 1 GeoPrinciples.

This list is a combination of two types of posts.  Some represent the best posts of Geography Education during 2012 as voted by you the viewers (measured by page views) and I've added a few that I feel where my 'favorite finds' of the year.  For more favorites, you can see the best of 2011.

Tags: best of 2012, zbestofzbest, geo-inspiration.

The National Geographic Education Foundation works to assist teachers to promote the status and quality of geography education.  In keeping with that mission they have recently revamped their AP Human Geography page, dividing all their resources according to the 7 major units of the course (in the "tags" section below, I have attempted to do the same):

1. Geography: Its Nature and Perspectives
2. Population
3. Cultural Patterns and Processes
4. Political Organization of Space
5. Agriculture and Rural Land Use
6. Industrialization and Economic Development
7. Cities and Urban Land Use

Tags: APHG, unit 1, unit 2, unit 3, unit 4, unit 5, unit 6, unit 7.

I present this map (hi-res) without any context to my students and ask the question: is this statement true?  How can we ascertain the truthfulness of this claim?  What fact would we need to gather?  This exercise sharpens their critical thinking skills and harnesses the assorted bits of regional information that they already have, and helps them evaluate the statement.

The answers to these questions can be found here.

Tags: density, social media, East Asia, South Asia.

The collapse of the Aral Sea ecosystem is (arguably) the worst man-made environmental disaster of the 20th century and 21st century has seen the continuation of the desertification set in motion.  Soviet mismanagement, water-intensive cotton production and population growth have all contributed the overtaxing of water resources in the Aral Sea basin, which has resulted in a the shrinking of the Aral Sea--it has lost more of the sea to an expanding desert than the territories of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg combined.  The health problems arising from this issues are large for the entire Aral Sea basin, which encompasses 5 Central Asian countries and it has profoundly changed (for the worse) the local climates.  Compare the differences with some historical images of the Aral Sea on Google Earth or on ArcGIS Online (also see this article from GeoCurrents) 

Tags: environment, Central Asia, environment modify.

There is a great series of maps in this NPR article that show that internal political divisions do not always line up with actual regional interactions.  The map of the United States shows the what money flows within regions that do not always follow state borders (see Wisconsin, Idaho and Pennsylvania).  The map of Great Britain shows the connections based on telephone calls.

Tags: USA, UK, borders, mapping, regions.

This playful song dramatizes the current E.U. financial crisis.  This humourous highlights what the E.U. was designed to be, and showing the advantages and disadvantages of enhanced regional cooperation.  This is certainly worth a listen.       

Tags: Europe, supranationalism, currency, economic. 

It is with great pleasure that I can announce to you that a Graduate Certificate Program specifically for AP Human Geography teachers is about to be launched.  Offered through the Elmhurst College Online Center, the program will to taught fully online in 8-week sessions. The APHG graduate certificate program curriculum correlates directly with the College Board AP Human Geography established curriculum.  This 5-course program can be completed in less than one year.  The full announcement is available in this PDF.

Some great educators and geographers have collaborated to design a "road map" for the future of geography education.  This is their report.

Tag: National Geographic, geography education.

"Earth From Space is a groundbreaking two-hour special that reveals a spectacular new space-based vision of our planet. Produced in extensive consultation with NASA scientists, NOVA takes data from earth-observing satellites and transforms it into dazzling visual sequences, each one exposing the intricate and surprising web of forces that sustains life on earth."

This documentary shows something interesting for the physical geographer, human geographers, and geospatial technology specialists.  In other words, this touches on just about all things geographic (with cool images!).  The overarching theme is that so many things in this world that we wouldn't imagine are actually interconnected with excellent examples. 

Tags: remote sensing, geospatial, unit 1 Geoprinciples, physical.

There are many types of housing development patterns throughout the world.  This article provides a summary of approximately 20 different housing patterns common in the United States with a visual example demonstrate the impact on the urban footprint (Pictured above is an example of new urbanism in Boulder, CO).  Each neighborhood has distinct cultural amenities and attracts particular socioeconomic market segments. 

Questions to Ponder: What housing patterns are you drawn to?  How come?  What are the advantages for the residents to live in that type of community?  What are the impacts that the housing pattern has on the physical environment and the urban system?  What systems are most profitable for developers?  How does the layout of the neighborhood alter the sense of place?  

Tags: housing, urban, planning, density, urbanism, unit 7 cities.