Teaching Geography

Created By Jodsat Graphic Media

The New York Times recently had a great article about teaching geography, which can be found here All Over the Map: 10 Ways to Teach About Geography. I'm not a teacher, so I can't comment on the educational methods in the article. What I can speak to the fact that geography and geographic thought are largely ignored in today's educational system.

From my point of view the core issue is the combination of geography with other disciplines in grade school, usually history or social studies. As a result it takes a back seat and usually only a few lessons or units are devoted to geography. I remember my high school experience with geography consisted of memorizing a few key rivers and geographic feature of my home state (Virginia) and the United States. I don't think it was a very constructive use of my classroom time, and it gave an impression that geography is about memorizing places.

Instead we should be teaching children, and for that matter teaching adults, how our world interacts with us and how we interact with the world. How did physical geography shape our history, and how will it shape our future? How have humans impacted our world, and how might we impact it tomorrow? Location and space are connected to every other field of academic study, yet somehow it's ignored in most schools. As a result kids quickly forget where the Shenandoah river is shortly after the test, they can't read a map, and they don't realize that the food they choose to buy impacts far away cultures and land formations (and eventually will impact their own communities).

Take a minute to review the New York times article and think of how you can better teach geography in your classroom or at your dinner table. The suggestions are based off of Nat Geo's National Geography Standards, which is another great place to learn about geographic thought.

Where did your Thanksgiving turkey come from?

Image Courtesy of Malene Thyssen

Ever wonder where your turkey comes from? How about the origins of other Thanksgiving staples like cranberries, sweet potatoes, and green beans?

Thanks to the guys at ESRI you can now find out! Using USDA data from 2007, ESRI created a pretty slick map to point out where these popular Thanksgiving items come from. Each item is mapped separately to avoid a cluttered look, so you'll have to click through four to get the full picture. Everything is displayed in a proportional symbol format, with the symbol of choice being simple colored circle and the unit being a county. Clicking a county will bring up a pop up that allows you to see how many turkeys were sold and acres of sweet potatoes, green beans, or cranberries were grown for the county.

Go take a look at check it out for yourself here. Some of it is pretty obvious, but who knew that the vast majority of cranberries were grown in four states?

Vanishing Islands - Google Maps

Sandy Island in Google Maps - It's the "grain of rice" at the northwest corner

The story of Sandy Island, the mysterious Coral Sea island that may or may not exist, has been all over the news recently. To make a long story short, a group of researchers in studying plate tectonics decided to stop by Sandy Island recently to check it out. The island had piqued their interest because it was not on their navigation charts of the area, but popped up on Google Maps and Google Earth. 

Sandy Island in Google Earth  - It's the black hole on the left 

After what I can only imagine was a drunken night of sailing they arrived at the "island", which turned out to be nothing more than the open sea. A quick Google search of the subject will return a long list of results attempting to explain why the island displeasure or never even existed. Really, I don't care. The important lesson here isn't what happened, but to understand that maps, even by Google, are never perfect. They are influenced by people, culture, the past, and technology.

I wonder how many other islands are mapped but don't exist. More importantly, how many might exist that have never been mapped? 

Weekly Top Media Maps - 11/18/2012

This one is a day late because I was celebrating the Redskins route of the Eagles yesterday. This weeks maps deal with conflicts in the Middle East and Black Friday.

1.) Dreading Black Friday? Smartphones to the rescue! - If you plan on shopping this Black Friday you might want to read this article first. You can use your smart phone to map out the most efficient shopping route, complete with "in stock" notices from stores like Macy's and Walmart.

You can even use your phone to get a better deal. Retailer are starting to catch on to the ever so popular "show rooming" technique, where a shopper views an item in store and then buys it cheaper at an online shop. Many of them now offer price matching to online store prices as long as you show them the online price. Find what you want, find it cheaper online, bust out your iPhone and get the best of both worlds; the best deal AND you can walk home with the goods immediately.

2.) Gaza Conflict - An in depth article about the ongoing violence in the Gaza strip. The BBC uses multiple maps to demonstrate where Israeli air attacks are occurring, where Gaza based rockets are hitting, and the range of various rockets available to Hamas. If you need a primer on the current version of this never ending crisis then this article is it.

3.) Iran Fires at US Drone - This Washington Post article tries in vain to identify where a US drone was targeted by Iranain aircraft two weeks ago. The drone wasn't hit and returned to a US base safely. The author based his "shooting area" on comments made by US officials to CNN.

Google's 100,000 Stars

If you get a chance head on over to the Google Chrome Experiment - 100,000 Stars website. It only works in Chrome, so make sure you don't use IE or Firefox.

The experiment, just released today, is a virtual tour of our universe. There is a "guided tour" function and you are allowed to freely roam about. We always hear about how large our universe is, but seeing it displayed in this format really shows just how small our planet, and ourselves, really are.

Be careful though. Not only is this sight visually appealing, but you can click most galaxies, stars, etc for more information. The extra information, amazing graphics, and the cool soothing music will trick you into spending far more time than you originally intended roaming around the galaxy. You've been warned!