"This blog-a-thon submission comes from Joseph Kerski of the National Council of Geographic Education (2011 President). Joseph writes about why geography education matters and how it applies to each one of us." 
These web pages provide a plain language summary of Australian Indigenous health. They include facts about common health problems and risk factors among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. 
This Friday at 10 a.m. you can join a real-time conversation with members of our Everest expedition team. 
If All of Earth's Water was put into Single Sphere, from the USGS Water Science School...
"This picture shows the size of a sphere that would contain all of Earth's water in comparison to the size of the Earth. The blue sphere sitting on the United States, reaching from about Salt Lake City, Utah to Topeka, Kansas, has a diameter of about 860 miles (about 1,385 kilometers) , with a volume of about 332,500,000 cubic miles (1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers). The sphere includes all the water in the oceans, seas, ice caps, lakes and rivers as well as groundwater, atmospheric water, and even the water in you, your dog, and your tomato plant."
The sphere does not include the potential water that some scientists believe may be trapped in the mantle (and thus not accessible on the surface). For more about water that is not on or near the surface, see: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/03/0307_0307_waterworld.html Via Seth Dixon, Ph.D. Global warming does not impact all areas equally, and in the future the less environmentally resilient countries will be at increasingly at risk. Bangladesh, as a flat area prone to flooding, is especially vulnerable to anthropogenic climate change. However, Bangladesh has implemented many changes in the cultural ecology to make sure that they are using the land differently to strengthen their environmental resilience. Via Seth Dixon, Ph.D. 
This is an excellent spatial graph that helps to explain the distribution of the human population. Why do we live where we live? The longitude map is still fascinating, but has less explanatory power. What would be brilliant is a graph that charted population by latitude (as this does) AND charts the amount of land at each given latitude. To see the originals on the Radical Cartography website, see: http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?histpop Via Seth Dixon, Ph.D. 
Sadly, 35 of 200+ sites designated as natural World Heritage properties are considered in danger and face threats such as pollution, human armed conflict, poaching, uncontrolled urbanization, and unchecked tourism and development. 
"The web's largest and fastest growing collection of interactive panoramic images from around the world." The UNESCO, World Heritage Committee, currently meeting in Brazil, has approved 29 new natural, cultural and mixed sites. 
The Hunter Valley wine industry is under threat because of the growing dominance of global superstores, Hunter vignerons warn. 
"Today, through the Google Earth Outreach program, the tool has become a vital instrument for non-profits and public benefit organizations to visually tell their stories." 
AUSTRALIA IN THE ASIAN CENTURY – A series examining Australia’s role in the rapidly transforming Asian region. 
The Great Barrier Reef is under attack from a range of enemies including climate change effects (coral bleaching, increased severe storms, and ocean acidification), pollutant discharge from the land, coastal…... |
A ''bold stroke'' involving a huge restructure was needed to address the problems faced by the NSW fisheries, which cover more than 2100 kilometres of coastline, inland waters, rivers, estuaries and open sea. 
Climbers have reported seeing another body on Mount Everest, raising the death toll to four for one of the worst days ever on the world's highest mountain.... They were part of what was a "traffic jam" by Everest standards - an estimated 150 climbers who rushed to use a brief window of good weather to try to reach the top on Friday and Saturday.
The latest edition of the publication Demographia World Urban Areas shows that the migration of rural people to urban areas continues, with 26 of those areas now considered “megacities.”... 
YouTube Videos Near Me is a Google Maps, YouTube and Google Feeds mashup that will help you discover YouTube videos captured at any location on our planet... 
In Sub Saharan Africa, keeping girls in school through high school increases the benefits for girls, their families, and their communities. 
"Rapid and widespread changes in the world’s human population, coupled with unprecedented levels of consumption present profound challenges to human health and wellbeing, and the natural environment. This report gives an overview of how global population and consumption are linked, and the implications for a finite planet." 
Links to a number of useful resources on Mt Everest, courtesy of Richard Byrne (Free Technology for Teachers).
Richard Byrne (Free Technology for Teachers) says of this site: "Useful mapped displays of UN development indicators data. There are ten data categories from which you can choose. Within each category there are further refinements possible. You can customize the map to present sharper contrasts between the data indicators, change the indicator symbols, and alter the map legend. To visual the change in data over time, use the time slider at the bottom of the map. Your maps and the data that they represent can be downloaded as PNG and JPEG files for printing."
A 3-minute journey through the last 250 years of our history, from the start of the Industrial Revolution to the Rio+20 Summit. This video is a great primer for discussing human and environmental interactions as related to industrialization, globalization and climate change.
Via Seth Dixon, Ph.D. 
"Understanding what is happening to forests in Australia and where they are being lost or gained is important for biodiversity conservation, carbon accounting and many other aspects of sustainable forest management." Just the movie trailer of 'Bag it' gives a great snapshot of the problems caused by our obsession with plastic bags. A good stimulus piece for lessons on sustainability and environmental management. 
A disaster grab bag - not something most Australians would have on their radar. This image and article from the BBC would be great stimulus material for a discussion of how students might prepare for a disaster. Thanks to Alan Parkinson @GeoBlogs for bringing this article to my attention. 
"The twelve units of work in Global Words have been produced by World Vision Australia and the Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA) to integrate the teaching and learning of English and global citizenship education." Some good geography resources here. |
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