Friday, April 26, 2013

Histgeog: Making the connection



Image above: The discovery of America map 1498. From the Old Maps Online site.

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Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
'Towards a National Geography Curriculum' project website
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manning@chariot.net.au

Where am I?? Adelaide, Australia: S: 34º 55' E: 138º 36'




Recently I have come across the term 'histgeog' to describe the connection between history and geography in the school curriculum. In particular, the word highlights the interdependent connection between history and geography. It is true to say that one cannot understand the history of a place without an understanding of geography of that place and vice versa. Whilst this connection has been explored previously on Spatialworlds, this posting will just list several useful sites to make the connection between history and geography. As we talk about a connected curriculum during the implementation of the Australian Curriculum and the issues of a crowded curriculum, the technological connection ‘touchstone’ between the two disciplines becomes of great interest and importance.

These are but a few of the ever growing sites relevant to histgeog - in the old days we would  call it historical geography!


In this fascinating set of images, Dutch artist and historian Jo Teeuwisse merges her passions literally by superimposing World War II photographs on to modern pictures of the where the photos were originally taken. An interesting blending of place and change over time. This serves as a reminder that places are rich with history; to understand the geography of a place, one must also know it's history (and vice versa). 

* British have invaded nine out of ten countries 
This map shows that Britain has invaded all but 22 countries in the world in its long and colourful history, new research has found.

* An Interactive Map of the Blitz
Where and When the Bombs Fell on London.

New nations seem to pop up with alarming regularity. At the start of the 20th century, there were only a few dozen independent sovereign states on the planet; today, there are nearly 200! Once a nation is established, they tend to stick around for awhile, so a nation disappearing is quite uncommon. It’s only occurred a handful of times in the last century. But when they do, they completely vanish off the face of the globe: government, flag, and all. Here then, in no particular order, are the top ten countries that had their moment in the sun but are, alas, no more.

This is a video introduction to www.historypin.com which might just prove to be a very useful and important project.  It's historical geography powered by collaborative mapping that is infused with social media dynamics.  Backed by Google, they are geo-tagging old photos to recreate the historical geographies of all places and comparing them with current street view images.  You can search by topic, place or date...this has the potential to be very big.

Geospatial technologies allow people to view phenomenon never before seen in remote places.  How does this type of exploration promote spatial thinking?  Why does scale matter in this analysis?   

Google Earth's Timeline, if you haven't discovered that feature will allow you to compare and contrast imagery from an area from the present 2010/11 to 1993-1995 images.  Click the 'clock' button and a timeline that you can slide to the past appears.  Nice historical possibilities with this option. Also watch this Vimeo on using Historypin


How have women's political rights changed around the globe over time.This interactive map shows the long history of the fight for suffrage and political representation around the globe. Click and drag on the year slider to see the changing face of women's political representation over the years.

A great site to explore the use of GIS in the study of history.

 The OldMapsOnline Portal is an easy-to-use gateway to historical maps in libraries around the world. It allows the user to search for online digital historical maps across numerous different collections via a geographical search. Search by typing a place-name or by clicking in the map window, and narrow by date. The search results provide a direct link to the map image on the website of the host institution.

The Spatial History Project at Stanford University is a place for a collaborative community of scholars to engage in creative visual analysis to further research in the field of history.

 This database of global wars and conflicts is searchable through space and time.  You can drag and click both the map and timeline to locate particular battles and wars, and then read more information about that conflict.  This resource would be a great one to show students and let them explore to find what they see as interesting.

 See Rome as it looked in 320 AD and fly down to see famous buildings and monuments in 3D. Select the 'Ancient Rome 3D' layer under Gallery in Google Earth.

 An Interactive Graphic Showing The Evolution of Western Dance Music Over The Last 100 Years in Under 20 seconds...

A fantastic interactive map with population charts that show the massive explosion in urbanization since 1950 until the present.

How much do you agree with the author's assertion that geography explains the foreign affairs of the U.S.?  Is there any environmental determinism in this argument?  

* Rates of travel in the past
 In this age of fast travel and instant digital communications, we tend to forget that not so long ago, distances were subjectively very different.

* Neatline
Neatline allows scholars, students, and curators to tell stories with maps and timelines. As a suite of add-on tools for Omeka, it opens new possibilities for hand-crafted, interactive spatial and temporal interpretation.


More hisgeog sites will pop up on my Histgeog Scoop.it as the months go by.



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