Into the Driver's Seat

Smarty Pins is a Google Maps based geography and trivia game.

"As much as James Bond is defined by his outlandish gadgets, one of the most important tools for real-life spies is actually much less flashy: maps. Whether used to gather information or plan an attack, good maps are an integral part of the tradecraft of espionage. Now, to celebrate 75 years of serious cartography, the Central Intelligence Agency has declassified and put decades of once-secret maps online.  These days, the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies rely more on digital mapping technologies and satellite images to make its maps, but for decades it relied on geographers and cartographers for planning and executing operations around the world. Because these maps could literally mean the difference between life and death for spies and soldiers alike, making them as accurate as possible was paramount, Greg Miller reports for National Geographic."

Tags: mapping, geopolitics, map, historical, map archives. 

"Colored printed sections showing the map of the world are cut to shape then pasted onto the surface of the globes and a protective coat of varnish is added. Narrator recounts the fact that lots of the workers have been there for over 30 years and quips: 'While the rest of the mankind does its best to blow the world up, they like building a new one.'"

Visualizing the flow of the world's migrants from country to country.

Based on data from the U.N. Population Division, this map shows the estimated net migration (inflows minus outflows) by origin and destination country between 2010 and 2015.

Blue circles = positive net migration (more inflows). Red circles = negative net migration (more outflows). Each yellow dot represents 1,000 people.

Hover over a circle to see that country’s total net migration between 2010 and 2015. Click a circle to view only the migration flows in and out of that country.

For more info about this map, read the article, All the World’s Immigration Visualized in 1 Map.

Tags: migration, USA, mapping, population, unit 2 population.

A step-by-step tutorial on how to create an interactive map with Visme, a free online infographic and presentation tool.

Social studies classrooms throughout the Boston public school system are getting an upgrade some 448 years in the making.

Today, to the southeast of Block Island, there are five new structures rising from the ocean. These are the towers of the Block Island Wind Farm (BIWF), the first offshore wind energy installation in the United States. The turbines will generate 30 megawatts of energy; providing electricity to 17,000 households on Block Island and coastal Rhode Island (McCann, 2016), and replacing the diesel generators that previously powered New Shoreham. The turbines are on schedule to begin turning in November 2016 once commissioning is complete.

Climate change has already displaced tens of thousands of people. If it continues unabated, it could lead to one of the largest mass human migrations in history.

"GPS Essentials is the most complete GPS tool on Android Market: Navigate, manage waypoints, tracks, routes, build your own dashboard from 45 widgets."

"How do you get Google to visit your small, remote island group with its Street View vehicles, and digitize your roads for the benefit of locals and tourists alike? If you are the Faroe Islands, then you exploit your local resources to roll your own Street View, in the hopes of attracting Google's attention. Behold: Sheep View 360, a solar-powered 360-degree camera, mounted on a sheep's back. Sheep View takes advantage of one great Street View feature: You can upload your own images to Google's service. So Durita Dahl Andreassen, working for the tourist site Visit Faroe Islands, decided to kick-start the Faroe Islands' entry by putting the camera on a sheep and letting it wander free, then uploading the photos."

Jim Lerman's insight:

This is such a rich story; using technology in a pre-industrial way to exploit the attractions of an isolated set of islands. This could make a marvelous multi-disciplinary inquiry and I can just imagine students mounting cameras on their pets to tell the stories of their neighborhoods.

The distribution of medals shows the existing Olympic inequalities: The overall patterns are a reflection of wealth distribution in the world, raising the question whether money can buy sporting success. Besides investment in sports by those countries who can afford it, the medal tables also reflect a battle for global supremacy in political terms.

Tags: sport, popular culture, mapping, historical, cartography.