“Global news with a spatial perspective: resources for educators and the inherently inquisitive”
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Seth Dixon, Ph.D.
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Geography Education
Geography Education
Geography and environmental science gain in popularity in the Advanced Placement program, while interest is waning in some languages.
Now is a critical time to continue the push for greater geo-literacy in the curriculum, to ensure that students have the foundations established for them to be successful in AP Human Geography before they reach it. 
Explore world stats using StatPlanet World Bank, the first prize winner of the World Bank's Apps for Development competition. It directly accesses and visualizes all of the World Bank's 3000+ indicators available through its Open Data initiative, on many different topics from Agriculture to Science & Technology. This is a great way to introduce students to thematic mapping and offers incredible freedom to explore what you find interesting. This is the type of resource that could be used for any unit. 
When you login to craigslist, it will funnel you to the closest local group. What would that a map of that process look like? I'm not a huge fan of the Central Place Theory (but it is in the curriculum), but maybe this map could help explain some of the ideas of the theory. 
This map answers a few simple questions: How far away is the nearest McDonald's? Where is the concentration of McDonald's highest or lowest? While population density is the immediate pattern that we identify, what else can this map show us? The clip which starts a 2:15, and is an audiovisually rich cultural collage. Folk cultures are often described as regionally based, nearly homogenous, rural cultures. These societies are typically dominated by the older generation, traditional, family-based and slow to change. 
SYRACUSE —— The state altered the West Davis Corridor to appease one group, but now another group is opposing those changes. Earlier this...
This issue in Syracuse, Utah is not that Earth-shattering, yet it is a perfect case-study that highlights the local city planning politics of NIMBY (Not in my backyard). While a road through a certain neighborhood might solve the regional transit issue, for local residents it can dramatically change the character of the neighborhood, provoking vociferous complaints. 
Hodder Education Geography Nest -Our online community for geography teachers and experts, sharing and discussing ideas, resources and all things geography!
This blog post emphasizes the importance of spatial thinking and place-based understanding in environmental studies meaning that all environmental education should have at least some measure of geography embedded within. Geoliteracy is critical for successful environmental education and geographers should advocate for that inclusion. 
Twitter is supposed to have turned the world into a global village. But new research shows that our Twitter ties are considerably more parochial than most of us imagine.
Globalization inherently means unequal access to to technological resources and means of communication. This is clear that major nodes of interconnection leapfrog others, but most people still have very place-based regional centers of interaction. Geography still matters. "The story of the Arab revolution that was abandoned by the Arabs, forsaken by the West and forgotten by the world." 
This PBS video segment (2009) is dated, but the issues remain relevant. Brazil has implemented the first sustainable biofuel economy in the world with their copious amounts of sugar that are converted to ethanol. Is this a model for the future or just something that would only work in places with the right geographic qualities? Besides being a topic where the concepts of scale and region matter, the energy, economy environment and geopolitics all play a role in shaping the debate. 
Over the past 18 months thousands of Haitians have flocked to a small town in rural North Carolina.
This video is filled with geographic content. How does immigration change the cultural and economic profile? While large cities are typically the destinations for migrants why are these Haitians coming to this small town? 
Selections from Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton’s captivating history of timelines, now in paperback—from time circles to time dragons, to a history of civilization drawn on a single piece of paper.
How do we spatially organize time to give it a visual representation that is somewhat intuitive? This fascinating gallery portrays various attempts throughout the centuries of how historians have mapped out their historical narratives. This is old enough that have been some changes to the political maps since this was produced 1993. What listed countries would now be marked incorrect? Which ones, even then would be politically contentious to categorize as a country? |
This is a link to the AAG preliminary program for the meeting this weekend. I'll be presenting Friday at 2:40pm in th Social Media, Research and Pedagogy session (in the Gramercy Suite B, Hilton NY, Second Floor). The title of my presentation is "The Social Media Classroom: Bringing Globalization to Geography Education." I hope to see some of you there. 
Artist John Locke is converting obsolete Manhattan phone booths into mini libraries. Now if only people would stop stealing his entire book collection.
The pay phone has become an obselete part of the urban infrastructure in the cell phone era, and the question of what to do with these has become a real issue. Leaving them in their current form is essentially conceding that the city is technologically outdated and some fear that is the wrong message to be visually transmitting in the landscape. As thousands of geographers are set to decend on New York City for the AAG conference, this is another example of appropriating public space for a communal project that deserves some first hand investigation (I really want to see one!). 
Methane from a landfill will flow to a power plant, helping to keep the lights on in the city.
When Mexico City’s government shut down the giant Bordo Poniente landfill last December, officials announced that they had a full-blown plan for the site...the city aims to capture the methane gas produced by the landfill to fuel a power plant that could supply electricity to as many as 35,000 homes. 
This interactive feature provides a great tool for analyzing the urban historical geography of Pittsburgh. This would also be a valuable resource for teaching about the cultural landscape. What are the major changes you see between the two sets of images? "This is the story of a man who makes sling shots and shoots them like an expert marksman." I love showing this clip--this man embodies many of the hallmarks of folk culture. His life story shows the elements that differentiate folk culture from popular culture. Via Seth Dixon, Ph.D. 
Do Russia and North Korea share a border? The answer is tougher than you think.
Maps and borders are the primary subject in Frank Jacob's articles to the New York Times, and this one clearly conveys the idea that borders and maps are critical components in geopolitical maneuverings. In this case, North Korea, China and Russia have all sought to control the strategy lands near their borders’ convergence. This lead to one of my favorite trivia questions: what do North Korea and Norway have in common? 
Divers on Australia's Great Barrier Reef recently snapped rare pictures of a wobbegong, or carpet shark, swallowing a bamboo shark whole.
The diversity of life on this planet and the ecosystems which such creatures live in is something that continually leaves me in awe at the wonders of the natural world. Although slavery is no longer legal there are still millions of people living in slavery today. One place and industry where slaves still exist is the cocoa ...
The world's leading producer of cocoa is Côte d'Ivoire and dirty secret is that slavery is commonplace on cocoa plantations in West Africa. Children are smuggled from countries such as Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso and then are placed on remote, isolated plantations. While statistics are all guesstimates, this video is purporting that 35% of the world's chocolate is produced by slave labor (I've seen higher estimates). What factors lead to this horrific condition? How is this a geographic issue? 
"Distilling ethanol from tropical sugarcane takes less land and uses less fossil fuel than starting with corn grown in temperate climes. That makes Brazilian ethanol, unlike the pampered and grotesquely wasteful American version, competitive with hydrocarbons and genuinely good for the environment."
Although ethanol is working well for Brazil, there is a growing literature supporting the idea that wide-scale ethanol production is not sustainable or environmentally beneficial. This is a great example to demonstrate that economic and environmental policies are locally dependent on geographic factors and are not universally transferable. For a simple explanation of the differences in the economic and environmental differences in the production of sugar and corn-based ethanol, see: http://cei.org/studies-issue-analysis/brazilian-sugarcane-ethanol-experience 
"Geografia, a collaboration between two Japanese studios, makes remarkable geography-inspired paper objects blending craft, cartography, and cutting-edge printing."
If anyone wants to but me a birthday gift for my office, this wouldn't be a bad place to start! Police in Mexico arrested a man they say is one of the country's largest methamphetamine producers. The arrest comes as Mexican drug gangs are moving aggressively to try to dominate methamphetamine markets not just in the U.S.
The drug issue is often described as a border problem and though that one little line was the only space necessary for understanding the problems. This podcast highlights how many places are a part of the networks at play in this complex economic geography that causes political, demographic and cultural strife on both sides of the border. |
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