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Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Across Two Fridays

The EarthView Experience map includes all of the visits we have made with EarthView, but this is such a busy week for EarthView that we decided to make a separate map just to show its travels from June 7 to June 14, 2013. This busy pace has been made possible by the fact that most K-12 schools are in session while BSU is on a summer schedule. More importantly, we have relied on current, former, and future EarthView wranglers from the Geography Department, along with a graduate of our EarthView Institute who is bringing EarthView to her own school.

View Across Two Fridays in a larger map

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Continental Shifts

During our most recent EarthView presentation, as Dr. Domingo was speaking about Africa, a question came to mind for Dr. Hayes-Bohanan (who is writing this post). Noting that we always emphasize that it is a continent (when nearby islands are included) of 55 countries, the question came to mind: Where would the population of Africa rank if it were a country?

The search for information about population by continent led to a simple presentation by geohive of population changes by continent over the 1950-2050 century. As explained in our Population Primer article last year, this is the "bottleneck" century, of critical importance to the long-term balance between the population of humans and the health of ecosystems.

The shifts growth in population and the relative proportion among continents is described by this series of pie charts. The use of circles is perhaps not the best way to compare overall population, since the numbers are represented by area but the eye tends to compare diameters.

The pie charts what proportion of the population is on each continent at 25-year intervals. In reality, these are not continents in the physical sense, but major regions that make for convenient comparisons. One must look carefully to identify some of the important changes during this century. Most dramatic, is the decline of Europe's population, which has just half of the share of total population that it did only six decades ago.

The key to the charts includes Oceania, but with about one-half of one percent of the world's population throughout this century, it is not visible. How does this compare to the proportion of EarthView (and of the earth itself) occupied by these countries, which include Australia and all of the islands of the Pacific?

More About Continents

Oceania is not a continent, nor are many places in the world, though people ask geographers to assign islands to continents all the time. Geographer Matt Rosenberg addresses some of the most frequent questions that start with the words Which Continent? To understand his answer to the question about Greenland, look at EarthView or any map that shows North America and Greenland with their continental shelf.


Visit the article on geohive to see the numbers behind the charts above. Which regions have maintained their share most consistently, and which have grown the most in relation to other continents?

Experiment with other kinds of graphs -- such as bar and line graphs -- to see which are most effective at communicating the changes experienced during this period.

Finally, address the original question: If Africa were a country, what real country would be closest to it in the population rankings? 

You can answer the previous question for each continent except Asia. Why is Asia the exception?

World Cup 2014

Throughout the 2013-2014 school year, look for more information about the geography of football, which is known as "soccer" in the United States. In June and July 2014, The World Cup championships will be held in Brazil for the first time since 1950.

As most fans know, Brazil has won the Cup more often (five times) than any other country, and the game is among the country's most important pastimes. For this reason, the 2014 Cup is expected to be followed with special attention around the world. It will be an excellent time to learn more about the geography of a vast and dynamic country that has experienced many exciting changes in recent years.

Because the tournament involves many teams in several rounds, stadiums in 13 cities will be used, so that viewers of the games will have the opportunity to learn about all of the major regions of what is a far more diverse country than most people realize.

Because members of the EarthView team -- and several of the BSU alumni who have been involved with EarthView in the past -- have extensive experience in Brazil, this EarthView blog will include both academic and first-hand accounts of the geography of Latin America's largest country.

Massachusetts is home to a growing number of people from Brazil or people from the United States who have visited Brazil. The Bay State also has a growing number of economic and academic connections to Brazil, so the World Cup focus comes at a very important time for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Map: Wikipedia
For now, detailed information about the Cup and its venues can be found on Wikipedia and FIFA. Return to this blog throughout the coming year!

Monday, June 3, 2013


Some geography students who are old enough to have an Instagram account might already be in the habit of taking photographs of their food. This is the story of a father who was walking with his young children and came up with a much better -- and richly geographic -- use of the technology. This short video explains how Litterati was created, and how it can be used to help create a cleaner planet.

Wind and Water

Our colleagues at Listen Edition have posted two recent articles of particular interest to geography educators, both related to weather and climate. Listen Edition is a new blog that serves as a sort of educational concierge of stories from public radio. Teachers in any discipline can use the site for audio, lesson ideas, and in some cases, detailed lesson plans.

Map from the original
NPR Storm Surge story
The first is Storm Surge Science, which describes efforts to communicate more effectively about the geography of storm surges. As Hurricane Sandy demonstrated, the high water driven ashore by hurricanes can be among their most important effects, but many people have not known how to interpret information about the surges. Cartographers and other scientists in New York City and at the National Hurricane Center in Miami are therefore working to create maps that are more effective than the language that has been used in previous storm warnings.

The other story is not going to be directly relevant for a while, but is nonetheless interesting. Canadian volunteers stepped into freezing wind tunnels to calibrate the traditional formula for Wind Chill Factor. A new formula has resulted that more accurately describes how cold a person would fee if exposed to a particular combination of wind and temperature. This story is accompanied by a complete lesson plan.