Geography Education

Looking forward to reading this. Seth Dixon's insight mentions the current practice of building walls that separates the haves from the have nots is telling. Is it possible to include natural resources in the whole wealth question? Is damming water a form of building a border wall?

This broadcast states how advances in cartography over time maps borders of territory that became public in europe since the 180's, before that places to travel to were only by memory.  After WWII orders were recognized and redrawn.  Maps and borders organizes land around us as fixed territories to control.  It allows territories control over their land and authority.  Less than 5 borders or fences shortly after WWII existed and now there are at least 50 ,75% which are within the last 70 years.  Physical walls being built slows human travel, borders wealthy from poor--US/Mexico has one of the largest gaps where US GDP is greater by 4 to 1 compared to Mexico (US$40,0000

Mexico $10,000 us dollars)  India/Bangladesh border also illustrates this.  They share the same Bengali languge, with 15 million Bangladeshis living and working in India.  This border is 4000 km long with 200,000 border agents employed.  The border fence is about 10 ft high doubled barbed with many gates and flood lights (no camerastation in space because of the flood lights).  Bangladesh cross into India to visit relatives living there, and work.  Bangladesh has poor standards of living and India has increased standards of living.  Bangladesh has over 160 million people , 1238 people per sq km (dense population) in the comparable size of US state of Iowa, is a low lying area with floods, (Ganges River empties into Bay of Bengal) and as sea levels rise one meter flooding occurs.

The future of borders between $$wealthy and poor and world trade capital movement ,investments of US in other countries and trade of other countries into the US, and the poor becomes a threat to the territories (states, countries) sine they cannot move around in the world.  Morre walls and fence borders are to com.  In the last 15 years walls and fences has increased between countries to protect resources and control their area and even used strategically to their own advantage for resource control, political control and military advantages while affecting the environment, economics and peoples way of life.

This is a must read book which has won Geography awards and very insightful.

How to handle it?

Since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Kurds have been caught in other people's plans for what the states of the Middle East should look like and are the largest 'stateless nation' in the world.  Divided between Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey, the Kurds have not been able to politically mobilize support for Kurdistan as they have been violently oppressed in these countries.  The Kurds in Iraq have been able to gain political autonomy with the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, and the Syrian Kurds are hoping to do the same if and when the Assad regime crumbles at the end of the civil war.  This make Turkey concerned that the Kurds in the southeastern part of Turkey will make renewed efforts to push for sovereignty. 

UPDATE: This PBS feature explains the historic timeline of the important political events for the Kurds in Iraq.This article from the Economist focuses on the key reason that outside forces won't leave the Kurds alone: oil.

Tags: Syria, ethnic, conflict, political, Turkey, culture, devolution.

For the fourth year running Somalia is once again the number one failed state in the world. The country is run by pirates, and even terrorist groups find the country too unstable.

Since World War II, African nations have gained independence after many, many years of being ruled by other countries. For many of these newly independent countries, there have been struggles over how to set up the government which results in some conflict. South Sudan is in that transitional stage now, and it is an example of how complicated it is to establish a new government.

BONUS: See Mrs. Ramsey for an article about a particular issue that people in South Sudan are experiencing, and an opportunity to write a paragraph for credit toward your class.

WOW! such interesting visuals to help understand the formation of this new political state.

This cliché image of "North Korea in the dark" reinforces preconceived ideas about the "totalitarian" state and how terrible life must be without electricity. Well, one aspect of this political geography is the effect of US-backed sanctions against North Korea and the severe ecological and energy crisis under which it has struggled for the last two decades. Just as electricity is not simply a "natural" resource, neither is energe consumption nor shortage. 

This image is appears to be a regional inset of the classic Earth at Night composite image however this nighttime remote sensing image was taken from Sept. 2012.  The Earth at Night image is typically used in classrooms to discuss what this actually means for human geography (Population density?  Development? Consumption? Where? How come?).  However, this particular portion of the global image focused on the Korean Peninsula highlights two other specific issues:

Tags:  economic, political, resources, water, sovereignty, coastal, territoriality, states, unit 4 political, remote sensing.