A tool for contestable geography

Image above: The classroom response system called Poll Everywhere


Related links
Geogaction
Spatialworlds website
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
'Towards a National Geography Curriculum' project website
Humsteach blog
GeogSplace blog
Geographical thinking Scoop.it  
Spatial literacy Scoop.it  
History and geography Scoop.it 
Spatial Education and technology Scoop.it   

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manning@chariot.net.au


Poll Everywhere has a place in the modern geography classroom to support discussion on contestable topics. 

"A curriculum is not value-free, as values and attitudes cannot be divorced from content."

The Shape of the Australian Curriculum: Geography January 2011

Geography and geography teaching is indeed not value free. It is almost impossible not to be political in some way when discussing geographical topics.

As Robert Butler was quoted as saying in the Economist in 2010:

“It is getting harder and harder in conversation to raise one or other of the most basic subjects in geography—agriculture, glaciation, rivers and population—without a flicker of panic crossing the other person’s face. You are no longer talking about a neutral subject.”


Geography as a subject has the potential to be relevant, dynamic and challenging for students in the classroom through providing the opportunity to develop a political frame around what is taught. How can we teach about water, population, migration and climate change for example without challenging students to place the discussion in a political context – that is, what do you believe is right and what are the justice and ethical beliefs that guide ones opinion on an issue. A digital tool that is a wonderful way to get students involved (all students, not just the vocal and uninhibited) in discussion of a contestable nature is Poll Everywhere. The brilliant aspect of this program is that it is easy to use, is anonymous and inclusive of all, can be used and developed in real time in the classroom and provides instant feedback (graphs, word walls etc). The program gives all students a voice so that they can express their opinion without ridicule or embarrassment. The resulting graphs and graphics provide data for class research and discussion and can be archived for comparison over time presentations. As a tool it is a great interactive way to involve the geography class in some high order thinking and discussion.

The brief video on the Poll Everywhere Home page gives an introduction to this free digital tool which can be used not only in the geography classroom but also with teachers in their professional learning in geography. Here is a Poll Everywhere document I recently used with a group of teachers working on the concepts in history and geography. All they had to do was type the URL http://www.pollev.com and start submitting their response to the questions in the document by using the codes (each code is unique and can be used only once specifically for the question - called a poll) generated by the teacher/facilitator of the question. Poll Everywhere is a great way to get discussion started in any gathering.  It is certainly worth the 30 minutes to get acquainted with the tool and make the learning more interactive for participants and create some inclusive and comprehensive data for contestable discussions.
 

Exploring spatial literacy

Image above: The Spatial literacy Scoop.it

Related links
Geogaction
Spatialworlds website
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
'Towards a National Geography Curriculum' project website
Humsteach blog
GeogSplace blog  
Geographical thinking Scoop.it  
Spatial literacy Scoop.it  
History and geography Scoop.it 
Spatial Education and technology Scoop.it   

Follow Spatialworlds on Twitter

Email contact:
manning@chariot.net.au

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



The fascinating world of mapping anything and everything and then being able to 'read' it!  

“In2006 Michael Goodchild characterized spatial literacy as the ability to“capture and communicate knowledge in the form of a map, understand andrecognize the world as viewed from above, recognize and interpret patterns,know that geography is more than just a list of places on the Earth’s surface,see the value of geography as a basis for organizing and discoveringinformation, and comprehend such basic concepts as scale and spatialresolution.” This encompasses a broad range of perspectives, knowledge, skills,and habits of mind, or dispositions loosely categorized as spatial thinking.”

As described in a previous Spatialworlds posting, spatial literacy is the development of the skills and capacities to ‘read’ maps, images and graphics. This is often called the skill graphicacy in geography. Such a skill is fundamental to the competency of a geography to make sense (analyse and make conclusions) of visualisations

Here is an excellent presentation on the nature and importance of spatial literacy.

To highlight the importance of spatial literacy, here is a great clips about maps and projects (and spatial literacy) from the West Wing.

As a result of my fascination as a geographer with spatial literacy I have an on-going Scoop.it titled ‘Spatial literacy’.  The purpose of the Scoop.it is to curate any sites which contain a map, graphic, image or interactive which requires students to ‘read’ and interpret what it shows – to make sense of the visualisation.  The following selection of a few sites curated on the Spatial literacy Scoop.it show that there are some really fascinating visualisations about which stimulate our curiosity on an unlimited number of topics – if the visualisation can be ‘read’ in the first instance. Only then can the geographical questions be asked.

When looking at the sites below consider the so-called spatial questioning tool for assessing spatial literacy when looking at a visualisation.

Here are some great sites to test your spatial literacy on!

* World’s busiest airport: great for the scale concepts via zooming – and just fun to look at the location, configuration and business of these giant airports.  

* The racial dot map. An interesting way to show change over space.

* Interactive crime map of London. A fascinating visualisation of crime to analyse and try to explain.

* An interactive New York bike availability map. Useful if looking for a bike and in New York!

* The science of familiar strangers. Interesting use of spatial technology. We knew but now we know!

* Shark attacks around the world

* The world of chocolate map

* London 3D map. A fantastic way to visually comprehend the spatial urban patterns and densities of a world city like London.

* 10 great Infographics

* Using IPhones to map the rich

* Mapping fire engines

* Mapping flight paths

* Mapping London commuters

* Earthquakes in the last week

* Mapping abortion and birth control laws

* US Gun Crime Map

* Hate map using Tweets

* Distance to McDonalds in the US

* Visualising the Global Footprint

* Invisible borders of…

Is this geography?

 

Image above: An image to analyse: what does it say?

 

Related links
Geogaction
Spatialworlds website
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
'Towards a National Geography Curriculum' project website
Humsteach blog
GeogSplace blog
Geographical thinking Scoop.it  
Spatial literacy Scoop.it  
History and geography Scoop.it 
Spatial Education and technology Scoop.it   

Follow Spatialworlds on Twitter

Email contact:
manning@chariot.net.au

Where am I? 
Darwin, Australia: S: 12º 46' E: 130º 84' 

“Is this geography?” is a question often asked by teachers and students when looking at internet sites. With the amazing numbers of sites of interest that can be viewed on the Internet, this is a reasonable question to asked.  I suggest that the answer is that if the site can be used to articulate and explore the concepts of geography, then it can be geography. The concepts of the Australian Curriculum: Geography are Place, Space, Environment, Interconnection, Change, Sustainability and Scale and they create the lens which any site can be viewed through to determine whether it can be used in the geography classroom.  What make a site (the inter-actives, maps and graphs they contain) geographical are the conceptual questions asked of the resource.

A previous Spatialworlds posting showcased sites such as Plane Finder, Marine Traffic and Public Profiler – great sites able to be used in the geography classroom to not only elucidate the concepts but also explore the content of the curriculum.

The task for this posting is to map the application of the following fascinating sites and what they contain against the content and concepts of the curriculum. These sites have not been created for the geography classroom but provide a great resource to teach the Australian Curriculum: Geography. The challenge is where and how?

 

* An animated graphic on drug addiction and spending.

 

* Other examples of data visualisations you never thought you needed (or anyone would map/graph) are found on the 'data is beautiful' site  


* And this visualisation is also of interest for ...



 * Watch the Intricate Patterns of Global Infrastructure Emerge From Geocoded Tweets

* ...and how could a geographer resist fitting these maps into a geography class. Maps which some call Map porn!

 

Making an impression: ecological footprinting

Image above: A Worldmapper cartogram of ecological footprints around the world.

Related links
Geogaction
Spatialworlds website
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
'Towards a National Geography Curriculum' project website
Humsteach blog
GeogSplace blog  
Geographical thinking Scoop.it  
Spatial literacy Scoop.it  
History and geography Scoop.it 
Spatial Education and technology Scoop.it   

Follow Spatialworlds on Twitter

Email contact:
manning@chariot.net.au

Where am I? 
Brisbane, Australia: S: 27º 29' E: 153º 08' 


The ecological footprint concept

A popular concept and application to the issue of resource use  and environmental impact is that of ecological footprinting. When looking at resource use it is a useful concept but by no means answers all the questions.

An ecological footprint measures the total amount of land and resources used, it includes your carbon footprint but goes further. Find out your ecological footprint by answering questions about your lifestyle. See how your choices affect the environment and whether you are living beyond the capacity of the planet.

Here are just some of the general footprint calculators on the Internet

http://www.myfootprint.org/

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/gfn/page/calculators/

http://www.bestfootforward.com/resources/ecological-footprint/

http://www.earthday.org/footprint-calculator

http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/

http://www.conservation.org/act/live_green/pages/ecofootprint.aspx

The EPA in Victoria has customised the footprinting concept even further to help businesses, schools and events organisers to use the concept to calculate their footprints. Have a look at their calculators at http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/ecologicalfootprint/calculators/

Some background and limitations

The Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA) concept was developed by Mathis Wackernagel and William E. Rees in 1996 to represent the natural resource consumption associated with human activity (Wackernagel & Rees, 1996). The ecological footprint is defined as the total area of biologically productive land and water required by an entity to sustain its current consumption levels. The result is an area, usually given in hectares. Ecological Footprint analysis has been applied to countries, businesses, individuals, and educational institutions.

EFA helps generate awareness of the magnitude of consumption. For example, the average Canadian footprint is 7.8 ha per capita (Onisto, 1998). What is the average in Australia?  That is, the typical Canadian consumes about eight hectares of the world's resources (as if all of the world's resources were spread evenly over the earth--they are not) every year. As a citizen of this planet, each person has a "fair share" of about two hectares of earth (Onisto, 1998). Compare the two figures, and you'll see that if everyone in the world were to live as Canadians (and Australians) do, the resources of four planet earths would be required to sustain us.

The strength of the EFA is that it communicates degrees and patterns of consumption simply and clearly (Moffat, 2000). In addition to serving as an effective awareness tool, the EFA can also be a guide towards sustainability through a change of practice or policy. But the EFA has its limitations. It is a static measurement, representing the consumption of an entity at one particular point in time. More importantly, the only way to reduce the size of a footprint is to acquire more land, decrease the population, or more realistically and appropriately, reduce the amount of goods and services that each person consumes. Overall, the EFA is a conservative measure of resource consumption since any practice considered by its nature not sustainable (e.g., toxic waste production and assimilation) is not included in its calculations.

Why not map it?

 

As with everything we study, we can map it across space. The mapping of ecological footprints across the world shows great disparity between developed and un/underdeveloped (LED/MED) countries. The following thematic map clearly shows that certain regions of the earth are consuming a disproportionate amount of the earths resources.

 

Some ideas to reduce your footprint

 

There is much advice on how we as individuals (and governments / businesses / schools) can reduce our footprint. Here are just a few:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNwK_D8SxZc

http://www.myfootprint.org/en/take_action/reduce_your_footprint/

http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/changing_the_way_we_live/cities/top_ten_ways_to_reduce_your_ecological_footprint.cfm

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/reduce-your-carbon-footprint/