Whether you are looking to buy a home on a California hill, avoiding landmines in the duty of battle, or avoiding that creepy stalker who will not leave you alone, spatial geography is everywhere. The major push to use more maps and technology to help us in all aspects of life started back when President Obama was elected into office. I am sure many people would argue it started way before then, but the videos made Penn State Public Broadcasting shine the light on how and what President Obama and his administration and chief leaders did to put spatial geography in place to make us much safer around the globe. Spatial Geography is used in our everyday life and as a teacher we can pass this vital information on to our students. The GPS tracking …show more content…
A video on Channel One News had a fourth grade who took it upon himself to raise money, find volunteers, and supply poor African villages that had no water source with a well and pump for their community. Lifesaver Hero, Ryan Hreliac, has his story on this website: http://myhero.com/hero.asp?hero=RYAN_HRELJAC. This website includes a tab for educators to provide them with lesson plans, resources, and ways to participate if a class or a school would like to take on this service project to build a well for a community or village that struggles to have a clean and safe water supply. In addition to the lessons the students could locate a village or community that was in need of a well. The students would split up into groups and each select a village or community. Each group would then need to do a presentation on the area and try to convince their classmates on why this village or community has the greatest need for this well. After the presentations are done, students would then vote on which village or community would get the well. Next, students would get a large map overview of the village or community and to complete an analysis of the area and find the best place to place the well. Students would use Google Maps to locate homes and find the most convenient place to put the well in the village or community. Students would need to use many geographical skills and gain valuable life skills to while completing in this
Throughout the history of The United States, geography has impacted many government decisions and actions, gradually shaping the country to the great nation known today. Geographic factors such as location, migration, natural resources, climate, and topography have determined these events. The Proclamation of 1763 and the Louisiana Purchase are two specific events in history which illustrate this relationship between geography and government actions.
In a world where geography only makes the headlines or points of coffee house discussion if a new study is released about how terrible students are at it, however, amazingly there ARE still students and people alike that simply love it and are thriving in their point of interest. Some stare at maps endlessly searching for things that most people would never even care to look at such as what makes this state similar with this state or why is
Geography plays a large role in why people settled in areas that they did, why certain cities succeeded, and many other processes that made Earth the way it is today. Although many of us just think of geography as a class we had to take in grade school, it is much more than that. Geography has some responsibility for everything on the surface of the Earth, from your favorite fishing spot, to why New York is where it is today. Coming from a small town in northern Manitoba, Canada, you either learn to love or hate the prairies, there is no in-between. It is told that the prairies are flat and boring, but I see it very differently.
Geography is the biggest part of a story. Every book, poem, short story, movie, play, and basically anything with a storyline has geography, it’s what makes a story good. Writers use geography to show readers a more indepth point of view of what they were thinking while writing. This is all stated in “Geography Matters” by Thomas C. Foster, he helps the readers realize how important geography is in their lives. In the Crucible by Arthur Miller, geography is a big impact on people's lives and actions. After reading these stories it makes the readers think how much the location and people they grew up with impacted them. Furthermore, geography is a big part in any story as shown through “Geography Matters,” The Crucible, and my own life.
Section II: The location, neighbors, land, and natural resources have culminated into a substantial advantage for the United States political development. Geography plays a vital part in the development and sustainability of any nation. However, this role is not always readily apparent.
As an educated citizen there are many benefits of developing spatial mentality. For one, it greatly aids in understanding what is going on in the news. For example, in order to understand “The Separation Strategy in Iraq”, it is beneficial to first know where Iraq is. Secondly, to be able to not just understand where Iraq is, but to understand the longstanding tensions between the Sunnis and the Shiites aids greatly in having a full understanding of the issue at hand. In addition, people should have an idea of where their food comes from. For example, in the article “As It Woos Syngenta, Monsanto Mounts Campaign to Combat Critics”, Monsanto attempts to raise awareness of its presence in countries like Brazil and India. To a spatially uneducated reader, that does not sound impressive; but to a reader who grasps what that means, it is a smart business move. This is because Brazil and India are major agricultural exporters so for Monsanto to get a foot in the door with those countries could make the company billions. A final reason to gain good spatial mentality is to understand the migration patterns that people unknowingly witness everyday. So often people brush migration patterns off as chance, without realizing the deep history that often is the root of the patterns. For example, the article “Blending French and African Cultures” is about how women who have migrated from Africa, especially
Dr. Urby had a guest speaker during his class today. The guest speaker was Dr. Gilmore, he gave a presentation on Geography. He has done extensive research in South Mexico, South America, and Honduras. Dr. Gilmore’s presentation was mainly focused on explaining the fundamental concepts of geography and its importance. Additionally, he introduced the class to the Geographic Information System (GIS). This system is a crucial tool that is available for geographers. In fact, everyone can access a geographic information system by utilizing their GPS on their smartphone. Moreover, Dr. Gilmore gave the example that the Mexican Government changed their oil and gas policies to open their doors to foreign companies. Dr. Gilmore utilized GIS to highlight
My project is going to entail two main parts. The first part is volunteering at the Orchard Place, a child’s mental health facility. We will help at the afterschool program on Wednesday October 12th. While there, we will help children with homework, read to them, and play/interact with them. The second part involves bringing a gift basket full of school supplies to the Orchard Place as a donation when we visit. The Orchard Place puts on the program we are volunteering for every Wednesday. The program is designed to give children a place to go after early release from school on Wednesdays so they are not going home to an empty house. Since children are in need of homework help at the Orchard place, our donation of school supplies will help better their mental health by providing them with the tools
Extension/follow-up activities: Have students search more information on how water is used culturally or tarditionally and bring in photos or a summary of their findings.
Geographers study the distributions of physical and human environments on the Earth's surface, as well as how physical and human systems are interrelated. The quote above, from Aldo Leopold, an influential 20th century writer on environmental ethics, makes a connection between humans and the land. One way geographers examine the interrelatedness of human populations and natural resources, such as arable land, is through examining spatial patterns of resource availability, consumption, and change, and how those patterns compare with and are affected by the distribution, growth, and movements of human populations.
I thought I understood the concept of experimental geography when I wrote my paper about Mapping and Photography, but as I started to do more research I realized that experimental geography had a lot more to it than I thought it did. Originally I felt that experimental geography was simply experiments done around the world. I still do not feel that this is an invalid conclusion, just like I said earlier I feel that experimental geography has a little more depth to it. When now I have come to the realization that it most likely means art that is done around the globe that is used to know more about the atmosphere of the world, and was just meant to try and observe how people react to it. I feel that it could have some huge potential impacts on
As technology advances, people grow increasingly dependent on it, deeming studies such as geography unnecessary. However, the article “A Sense of Place” offers a different opinion: “Geography matters as much as ever, despite the digital revolution.” (Lane 1). Technology has become a typical part of everyday life, affecting the real world as much as the real world affects it. People from different countries can communicate from across the world in a matter of seconds. This example of space-time compression causes people to feel as if the gap between countries is decreasing. Because of this, people are beginning to conceive geography as unimportant. When distance is no longer an inconvenience, it is no longer thought
“Over the past five years, Geographic information systems have become powerful graphical database tools, useful to everyone from city planners to departments of transportation, from environmental scientists to cartographers.” (Denes 62)
In Illinois, veteran social studies teacher Jennifer Walters used Travel Bugs, http://shop.geocaching.com/default/travel-bug.html inexpensive geocaching tags, in her 7th and 8th grade classes. “It’s a modern-day application of map skills and geography,” she said. “More than likely, today’s students won’t be navigating in the real world using maps. They’ll use a GPS.”
In addition to the endogeneity problem, researchers need to consider a spatial spillover effect when using spatial data. Generally, it is expected that neighboring areas have a stronger interaction than geographically distant areas. However, it is likely that unobserved household and neighborhood characteristics are shared over geographically adjacent neighborhoods, which can cause a spatial autocorrelation problem. Though spatially correlated errors do not result in biased estimates, these errors can produce inefficient estimates and biased standard errors (Anselin, 1988). The spatial econometric technique allows for an examination of the role played by spatial effects and geographical spillovers by considering the spatial characteristics of neighborhood data.