geographyalltheway.com - Online Geography and Humanities Resources

geographyalltheway.com - Online Geography and Humanities Resources

6.0 Earthquake in Bologna Italy

An earthquake in northern Italy has killed at least six people and caused serious damage to buildings in several towns, officials have said.The 6.0-magnitude quake struck in the middle of the night, about 35km (22 miles) north of the city of Bologna.

Questions to consider:
i) Why so few deaths?
ii) What has the response been like?
iii) Is the loss of cultural heritage a significant impact & to what extent can cultural hertiage be protected from natural hazrads?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18136437




http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16231626

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17747643

A great little video clip showing the positive impact of the London Olympics...

The scale of the universe

http://www.notdoppler.com/thescaleoftheuniverse2.php

A great link putting everything in context...

A smorgasbord of useful Geog data websites for further research; Unit 4 esp

http://www.swissray.com/

http://www.cred.be/sites/default/files/ADSR_2010.pdf

http://maplecroft.com/

http://www.gale.cengage.com/

http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/en/index.html

Different ways of measuring tectonic events...

Ok say ask any budding geographer how do you measure tectonic events and they will probably quote: Richter scale, Fujitsu scale, may be the Mercalli or even the VEI...but are some of these too out of date - according to topical popular science programme like QI they are!

Tectonic recording and measurements now focus and refer to the following:

VEI
Moment magnitude scale
Sieberg-Ambraseys Tsunami Intensity Scale
Mercalli

Interesting..no..?

Google maps

From time to time it is easy to forget how lucky we are to have so much technology at our finger tips. Google maps is just one of those essential tools that all geographers should become familiar with. I have recently finished teaching a young group the basics of Google maps in making their own personal geography maps including place markers, street view and usual routes. Given the open ended nature of the task some students excelled themselves and independently went off and explored much more than i had thought was capable.

So keep the tasks open ended and independent and use Google maps more!

STA travel around the world - one man's perspective on travel and food

STA Travel Australia sent 3 of our mates, Rick Mereki, Andrew Lees and Tim White on an amazing trip around the world. A 6 week journey of a lifetime crammed into one epic minute. http://www.statravel.com.au/

World Aids Day 2011

Today is World Aids Day. It is a often a poorly publicised event in the global media, notably in the UK, despite the fact that there are over 90,000 people in the UK living with HIV (source: http://www.worldaidsday.org/about-hiv.php) and that over a 1/4 of these people are unaware that they have it (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-15978016).

I am always reminded of the importance of this day due to the annual visit of one Emma Cole; a remarkable lady who has lived with HIV for over 20 years and has become synomyous with national and global campaigns (check out: http://thebangle.com/blog/tag/emma-cole/).

Luckily as a geographer it is part of the curriculum and some of the most interesting and important lessons i have taught over the past 6 years have been on this topic. Here are a few facts about HIV in the UK:

• Over 90% of people with HIV were infected through sexual contact
• You can now get tested for HIV using a saliva sample
• HIV is not passed on through spitting, biting or sharing utensils
• Only 1% of babies born to HIV positive mothers have HIV
• You can get the results of an HIV test in just 15-20 minutes
• There is no vaccine and no cure for HIV

Today the Guardian DataBlog - one of my favourite websites - has mapped 20years of HIV data; see the blurb below and then click the link:

The UNAIDS data shows that since 1999, the year in which it is thought the HIV epidemic peaked globally, the number of new infections has fallen by 19%. We've mapped the prevalence of adults with HIV over the past 20 years, so you can see the patterns of the change throughout the world and that dispite the overall improvement some regions have got worse. The figures come from this UNAIDS spreadsheet and show the prevalence of HIV in adults aged 15 to 49, as a percentage of the population. Let us know what you think.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/datablog/interactive/2011/dec/01/world-aids-day-hiv-data-2011-map

Also, Hans Rosling has produced and presented on Ted.com an interesting visual data display using his gapminder resources - the results and issues raised are fascinating, see below:

One of the biggest challenges, no matter where an individual lives, is the perception and stigma that is often associated with HIV and the issues surrounding safe sex (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-15969512). Although in the UK we are lucky to have sex education as part of our compulsory core curriculum in all secondary (and primary) educational estblishments, in some areas of the world the message of safe sex is not discussed and simply swept under the carpet.  In one of the world's emerging economies and potential superpowers, rates of HIV in certain Indian states are skyrocketing. The link belows shows a timeless clip, indicating how TV advertising and mobile phones are being used to combat the stigma and taboo subject of discussing and practising safe sex, ultimately to reduce levels of HIV infection: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/trust/whatwedo/where/asia/india/2008/04/080806_india_gates_condomcondom_video.shtml

Time lapse of the sky - one or cloud lovers

Ken Murphy installed a camera on top of the Exploratorium in San Francisco and set it to take a picture every ten seconds for a year. A History of the Sky is those pictures as a series of time-lapse movies where each day is represented with a grid. So what you see 360 skies at once:

For further details:
http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/

Life in a day...

Thank you Google for posting this fascinating film which follows a life in the day of people from across the world...arguably even better than the BBC's Frozen Planet series....

Britain and the Big Freeze

A little bit of background to the headlines featured above and a link to an interesting blog - i will let you all decide about how reliable you think it is.... thanks once again to Finch.

http://globalcoolingnewiceageuk.blogspot.com/2011/09/coldest-uk-summer-2011-in-nearly-two.html

A great data visualisation website

A great visualisation website: http://flowingdata.com/

Facebook connections in a globally connected world

The price to fill up a Honda Civic

The true size of Africa

A few websites that geographers should use more often....

http://www.swissre.com/
One of the world's leading global insurers - link to the Swiss definition of what is a hazard in World at Risk.

http://maplecroft.com/
A fantastic visual mapping treasure trove. In their own words: "We analyse over 500 global risks and issues to provide a comprehensive portfolio of indices, interactive maps, scorecards, briefings and in-depth reports."

http://www.un.org/wcm/content/site/climatechange/gateway
The UN's dedicated Climate Change web page - very useful for up-to-date resources and news feeds.

http://www.un.org/en/events/tenstories/08/index.shtml
A fascinating website by the UN which looks at regions and stories passed over by the main international news corporations.

http://www.un.org/News/
A new home page favourite for me! Excellent for geopolitics, hazards and all types of geography at all scales.

Cartography for all: Google Earth - One World, Many Stories Project.

Since it's creation Google Earth has made GIS popular and has been a timely boost for rebranding Cartography. People no longer view the world in one dimension and maps have now become more representative of the world we live in. Google Earth enables users to explore the world and contextualise our surroundings, helping to put back the local and global back in Geography.

The news that Google Earth has reached 1 billion users is celebrated by the 'one world many stories' project:

http://www.oneworldmanystories.com/#1_billion

McClendon, now VP of Engineering at Google, looks forward to seeing what the next billion downloads brings. He sees geospatial technology as "not just a tool for those in cartography. It's now a part of our culture to engage deeply with the world around us in a multitude of ways. Using Google Earth and Google Maps is a way to contextualize our surroundings and create a richer view of our place in the world."

The Great California Shake Out

http://www.shakeout.org/

The UK's population mapped

Who's growing, who's shrinking? Find out what's happening to the UK's population for every local authority across the country using this excellent website from the Guardian newspaper:

Click here for the links:

• For the data
• For the interactive map

Living Geography: What was there ?

Living Geography: What was there ?:

This is a website which ties historical imagery in with Street View to pro...http://whatwasthere.com/

World Mapper - re-ordering the world; a new form of Cartography!

An understanding of maps is fundamental to the study of Geography. Geographers by nature are interested in maps and one of my favourite first year modules at university was Cartography as it enabled me to visualise the data spatially and interpret it.

More recently with the advent of GIS and Google Earth/Maps maps have had in my opinion a brief revival, despite the rise of the Sat. Nav!

The worldmapper website certainly adds a new and updated dimension to how we see the world. The maps move away form the traditional and conservative approach of preserving the existing world order of old regimes/empires. In worldmapper, using information form the UN, the world is reshaped to show factors and trends often hidden by traditional  maps.

Enjoy and explore:

GHG emissions

Number of disasters

World population

Other map sites to explore:

http://bigthink.com/blogs/strange-maps
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/

Gapminder

The amount of data available to geographers is expanding rapidly. The gap minder website makes sense of what is happening in a dynamic and eye-catching fashion.  Very useful for Development Geography, Population studies and Medical Geography to name a few areas in which this information can be applied with gusto.

http://www.gapminder.org/

The accompanying TED lecture are also a treat for those who want to expand their minds....