June 28, 2007
The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) puts genius into their website — very often, it seems to me.
Go see this interactive map. It shows where civilizations or religions held sway, at a point in history you decide — and then projects forward to show how the group’s influence waxed and waned. Or plot two different groups, side-by-side.
Civilisations is a multi-dimensional picture of human history, where you’re in charge of the timeline.
It uses web technology to reveal the sweep of historical forces and the rise and fall of great empires and ideas over 5000 years in a way that no book could ever do.
And it does it your way. You can customise Civilisations to show you the things that interest you. The best way to understand Civilisations is to have a go.
Great bauble for world geography and world history courses — what sort of a warm-up exercise could you make with this, projecting it from your computer? What sort of homework could be made from this, for the kids to access on their own?
Gee, while you’re there, teachers: Take a look at the interactive quizzes on world religions — this could be a unit all to itself. Hook up your computer, take the quizzes as a class, on that rainy day when you were supposed to go out to look at the school’s garden and you need a ten-minute, cultural filler that sticks to the state standards. And look at this multifaith calendar. You can use it for your daily “this day in history” feature; it’s useful for students doing projects on various religions. Use some imagination.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
June 20, 2007
Here is a great exercise in applied geography: “The Sweet Tea Line” at Neatorama, with a link to Eight Over Five with a wonderful set of interactive maps — though, if you go to the Eight Over Five site, you don’t find any link to this particular map (can anyone explain?).
One of the maps from Eight Over Five, using data to determine the Sweet Tea Line.
What about regional variations in food, language, customs or commerce in your state? I remember discovering that “regular coffee” in western Massachusetts meant coffee with a lot of cream and sugar. Not so at Boston’s Logan Airport. Where is the line? What about the lines of where a soft drink is “a pop,” versus “a soda pop,” versus “a coke,” versus “a soda?” Read the rest of this entry »
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5 Comments | America's founding, Brain learning, Civil War, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, George Washington, History, Lesson plans, Maps | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
June 12, 2007
How could you use these maps in your classroom?
Image and film from Aaron Koblin Design|Media Arts, UCLA; “Flightpatterns”
Remember the old World Book maps of states that featured oil drilling derricks and cows in Texas, and shocks of wheat in Kansas? This is just that kind of map, updated for commerce connected with air travel, showing commerce density and direction hour by hour.
I’m thinking, one quiz would be to name the sites of most action. Another would be to calculate how many people are in the air at any given time (notice the count of the number of airplanes; you’ll have to assume about 100 people per aircraft, or more if you can find figures; notice there are no fewer than 4,000 aircraft in the air at any time over the U.S. — ponder that figure for a while, considering an average cost of more than $10 million per aircraft, the miles covered, and compare it to the maps showing the voyages of European explorers to America . . .)
What other maps can your kids make? Water flows of rivers? Train commerce? Highway commerce? Food transportation?
Geography should be an awfully fun topic to teach, and even more fun topic to learn, no?
Check out Koblin’s other work — see the crystals dissolve, science teachers?
Tip of the old scrub brush to Stranger Fruit, via Pharyngula.
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3 Comments | Business, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Maps, Pedagogy, Science, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
June 6, 2007
Have you tried out Google for Educators?
Google is a powerful search tool that is way under-utilized by most of us. Working with students, I constantly find they have difficulty using Google or any other search engine to cut out worthless material and focus on specific items they need for their research.
Google for Educators has several posters offering tips on searching to help out. Click here for .pdf version of Book Search, from Google
You can download the posters as .pdf files in a format suited to 8.5 X 11 inch pages, or for 17 X 22 inch pages. The larger size can be printed on the color “blueprint” printers your school’s drafting classes have (This is a good opportunity to go make friends with the drafting instructor — you can use those machines for great maps, too.). If your school lacks such printers, you’ll find commercial copy centers will reproduce them (we have Kinko’s here) — though my experience is it can sometimes be cheaper to have them treated as photos and processed at a local photo center (Ritz/Wolf’s/Inkley’s, etc.)
I particularly like the “Better Searches, Better Results” poster.
The Texas teacher evaluation forms encourage evaluation on stuff hanging on the walls fo the classroom — if you lack stuff to hang, especially stuff that helps students in times of need, Google offers several posters. Make the most of it.
[Has anyone else noticed that, as important as visual displays are supposed to be, very few schools make arrangements for easy display of materials?]
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Leave a Comment » | Libraries, Maps, On-line education, On-line learning, Plagiarism, Public libraries, Student projects, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
June 5, 2007
There you go: Legal clip art, properly attributed (though not necessarily properly footnoted — that’s another topic). How can you get more licensed clip art? See below the fold.
Read the rest of this entry »
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4 Comments | Business Ethics, Classroom technology, Education, Ethics, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Law, Leadership, Libraries, Maps, On-line education, Plagiarism, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
April 19, 2007
It didn’t start out to be such an odd question. “How does water get to the Arctic Ocean,” the kid asked. I’d just dropped on them a warm-up noting the designation of a fifth ocean, the Southern Ocean. They were working on maps, some coloring them in. To some of the students, it was news that we have more than one ocean on the planet.
“Water seeks its own level,” I explained. “Rivers carry waters to the oceans.”
He was really confused. Puzzling over Canada especially, he was venting. I was stupid, and not getting his question. “How come rivers don’t flow north?” he asked. Read the rest of this entry »
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1 Comment | Books, Education, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Lesson plans, Maps, Teaching, Weblogs | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
April 16, 2007
This is a story about space technology and why we orbit satellites, geography, geology, the risks of living in certain places, and the fun, and perhaps life-saving value, of finding things out. 
This is the kind of science news that excites normal kids and lends outcroppings on which to hang a lesson plan or class warm up: The Yellowstone Caldera is uplifting, according to new satellite measurements. Don’t worry. Yet. Read the rest of this entry »
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
5 Comments | Geography - Physical, Maps, Science, TEKS, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
April 15, 2007
Would tracking disasters add more than a little interest to your geography units?
Cliotech, a blog by a Pennsylvania social studies teacher, gives pointers to Alertmap, a group based in Budapest (hey, that’s a geography lesson right there!). Alertmap charts disasters — fires, floods, earthquakes, etc. — and what student is not interested in disaster?
Be careful not to unnecessarily scare students — but do point out that the world is full of danger, and natural and man-made disasters continue to plague mankind the world over.
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2 Comments | Classroom technology, Current History, Disasters, Economics, Environmental protection, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Lesson plans, Maps, Public health, Technology, Technology in the classroom, Travel, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
December 29, 2006
Olla podrida is a local, Spanish term for a Mulligan stew, for olio, etc.
Founding fathers and illegal immigrants — A new blog on the migration debate, cleverly titled Migration Debate, highlights a New York Times opposite-editorial page piece that details how many of our “founding fathers” took advantage of illegal immigration, or immigrated illegally themselves. William Hogeland wrote the piece, whom some of you will recognize as the author of The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and the Frontier Rebels who challenged America’s newfound sovereignty. (Scribner, 2006)
Google’s amazing powers: Bad time to be speechless: Over at 31fps, Google.com/maps magical powers are explained: The author finds a store on Google maps, clicks a button, and Google first calls his phone, and then calls the store — go Google, and leave the dialing to Google. Star Trek wasn’t this good. Just be sure you’re over being speechless when the party at the other end answers.
Amazing cosmos: Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy lists his top 10 images from outer space for 2006. #1 is a doozy, but be sure you read the explanation Phil offers.
Fashionable extinction: Microecos explains how fashion wiped out a beautiful, unique bird, the huia, in New Zealand, a century ago. It’s a reminder of how stupid humans can be — a good exercise is in there somewhere for geography classes, or a general lecture on the effects of colonization.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
December 3, 2006
Almost inevitably I want a map different from those provided by the text and all my ancillary and auxilliary sources. It’s maddening for a non-cartographer. So, I can see uses for custom map-making tools.
You can figure out what to do with this, if you have a computer and access to project it to a class — or if you send your class out on the ‘net to work: Maplib.
Tip of the old scrub brush to If:book. Be sure to check there for examples.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
September 6, 2006
Ooooh. I love maps. I like teaching about them. Projection is an issue for middle schoolers, though — they seem not quite to grasp why it’s important to show Greenland smaller than Australia.
Well, that’s an issue I have not reconciled.
But I did stumble across some cool animations on the Fuller Projection, such as that shown below.
Go see. And see an animation here.
Update: In comments, spatulated at A Bit Tasty lists a source for a poster of the Earth done in Fuller Projection.
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2 Comments | Geography - Physical, Lesson plans, Maps, TEKS | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
August 23, 2006
This is too good to leave in comments. A reader named Chris commented on my earlier post about NOAA maps with a list of sources.
Humans generally take in information much faster visually, and retain it longer. Maps provide a key tool for teaching history. The more the better, I think.
Chris wrote:
The NOAA data center is one of many really neat places to get data, images, and materials. Here are a few more (and let me know if you want more on any one topic, as I collect links like these – and happen to work in the field!):
Earth Observatory Science site. Free! One of the best sites out there.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/
Visible Earth:
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/
Find Space Objects! Easy views from your location. Cool.
http://www.heavens-above.com/
Space weather/environment. Great insight into the sun and upper atmosphere.
http://spaceweather.com/
http://www.sec.noaa.gov/
Elevation, land use, maps, and lots of other GIS data:
http://seamless.usgs.gov/
Learning technologies. Some fantastic educational materials:
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/index.html
Direct Readout Data. Great images.
http://directreadout.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Distributed Active Archive Center.
http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/www/
More great free images.
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Cheers!
Chris
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Posted by Ed Darrell
August 21, 2006
This is just one of several stunning images available from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC).
Downloadable, available on CD-ROM — this is good stuff for PowerPoint presentations and other classroom use.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
1 Comment | Education, Geography - Physical, Maps, Teaching | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 