Visualising: at the heart of geographical representation

 Image above: An animated map of global wind and weather.

Related links to Spatialworlds
GeogSplace (a teaching blog for Year 12 geography)
Geogaction
Spatialworlds website
GeogSpace
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website

Geographical thinking Scoop.it

Spatial literacy Scoop.it

History and geography Scoop.it

Spatial Education and technology Scoop.it
Just real interesting Scoop.it

Follow Spatialworlds on Twitter

Email contact:

manning@chariot.net.au

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

 
 Visualisations of interest

This posting is another opportunity to show some great visualisations to enhance student understanding and stimulate discussion on spatial technology. As mentioned on previous postings, an important skills of geography are visual and spatial literacy. Geographers love turning spatial data, statistics and information into visuals to make uncluttered sense of geographical happenings and phenomena. We are a very visual discipline - not only about the creation of visualisations such as graphs and maps but most importantly the interpretation and analysis of such representations. In the Australian Curriculum: Geography such skills are an important part of the Inquiry process i.e.

Inquiry Stage 2: Collecting, recording, evaluating and representing data

Inquiry Stage 3: Interpreting, analysing and concluding
   
Only by such interpretation and analysis of visualisations can geographers be problem solvers and decision makers based on geographical information and evidence.

Here are some sites to support this thinking:

* Mapping Ebola

Excellent case study on mapping Ebola to solve the developing problem. The website is the world’s leading source of reliable and authoritative news, views and analysis on information about science and technology for global development. Here is another interactive site mapping the distribution of Ebola.

* GIS practitioners are volunteering time to map. 
This site also has a nice pdf/digital presentation to use in class.

* Spatial comparison site
 A great site to show spatial comparisons between countries.

* Map fight: This simple WebApp allows the user to compare areas that are hard to compare on a map or globe because of distance or the map projection. This site helps strengthen student's mental maps and their ability to make regional comparisons. 

* When Google Earth gets it wrong
 Amazing distortions shown on Google Earth. 

* A powerful visualisation of world population
 A dot for every person on Earth - growing in front of your eyes.

* Animated map of global wind and weather
 Seen in this visualisation are the dual menaces, Cyclone Hudhud and Typhoon Vongfong (as seen from ISS). This visualisation of global weather conditions is updated every three hours from supercomputer data projections.  Click on the 'earth' text in the lower left-hand corner to customize the display.  For examining the wind patterns and oceans currents, this is much more useful than Google Earth.

Spatial sharing

Image above: Incredibly mesmerizing animated GIF is what the Internet looks like.

You are looking at, more or less, a portrait of the Internet over an average 24 hours in 2012. Higher usage is in yellows and reds; lower in greens and blues - as day and night passes across.

Related links
Geogaction
Spatialworlds website
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
'Towards a National Geography Curriculum' project website
Humsteach blog
GeogSplace blog

Follow Spatialworlds on Twitter

Email contact:  
manning@chariot.net.au

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


You think you have seen something 'speccie', what about ... ?



The sharing culture is alive and well in the world of geographers interested in the spatial and beyond. I continue to be amazed by the number of ‘things’ spatial which continue to turn up on the Internet on a daily basis. Every time I think I must have exhausted the treasure chest of maps, visualisations and geographically interesting ‘bits and pieces’, someone says, "have you seen ...". Sure enough it is a treasure that I have not seen and am rather excited to see. This sense of sharing (I will show you mine if ...) takes me back to the days of stamp collecting when we were young, when we swapped something treasured for something even better! It seems to be repeatedly happening to me as I pass on some great sites only to have other fantastic sites passed back in reciprocation. Like a chain letter, the people who harvest the site from me via my blogs and the GTASA website newsletter 'spam' (which I have harvested via colleagues, Google Groups, Twitter, Scoop.It and blogs), then pass them on to others and it continues until the community of geographers around the world have shared. Then it starts all over again tomorrow as another site is sent out into cyberspace to share. I thought in this posting I would put up some of the beaut sites that I have come across lately, that I know have had a life with others who have then used them in their teaching and passed them on to others. So here are some of my recent favourites.

 Great visualisations

* Incredibly mesmerizing animated GIF of what the Internet looks like

You are looking at, more or less, a portrait of the Internet over an average 24 hours in 2012—higher usage in yellows and reds; lower in greens and blues—created by an anonymous researcher for the "Internet Census 2012" project.

* Global Pop pyramids

Interactive Visualization of the Population Pyramids of the World from 1950 to 2050.

* Demographic transition model in Prezi

Prezi in an online alternative to powerpoint for displaying notes and lecture materials (noted for it's ability to see the whole picture, zoom in and it's rotating animations).  Prezi is free for educators and the presentations you made can be kept private or made public.  This Prezi outlines the 4 stages of the Demographic Transition Model, with historical and spatial context

 ... and from the master of visualisations, Hans Rosling 

* Data visualisation with Hans Rosling

 * Hans Roslingon World Population

Interesting maps of ... for ... ?

* Finding a plane (and ships)

Amazing tracking site using spatial technologies.

* A study of Women’s rights using spatial technology

analyze the spatial and temporal patterns of the expansion of women's political rights.  This interactive map is excellent for seeing these few metrics, but a more expanded dataset with maps concerning gender (in)equality in the world and the status of women is WomanStats.  http://womanstats.org/

* Women statsmaps

The WomanStats Project is the most comprehensive compilation of information on the status of women in the world. The Project facilitates understanding the linkage between the situation of women and the security of nation-states. We comb the extant literature and conduct expert interviews to find qualitative and quantitative information on over 310 indicators of women's status in 174 countries. Our Database expands daily, and access to it is free of charge

* Turning Facebook into a map lesson

Most students have Facebook accounts...what is geographic distribution of their networks? What explains these patterns? Looking at personal life histories and geographies would be an easy way to make spatial analysis intensely personal and relevant.  They are on social media; they just need to be prodded to start using it for intellectual pursuits as well

Go to the Get Friend map app

 

* Systems of Government by country
 

* A surprising map of the countries that are most and least welcoming to foreigners    Can we see any patterns? Is there a correlation between unfriendliness to foreigners and nationalism.

* Mothers Day Dates around the world

 A map that show Mother's Day celebration dates around the world. The Mother's Day is celebrated on various days in many parts of the world, most commonly in May, though also celebrated in March in some countries, as a day to honour mothers and motherhood.

Planning the spatial

Image above:  The data visualisation site called Gapminder

Related links
Geogaction
Spatialworlds website
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
'Towards a National Geography Curriculum' project website
Humsteach blog
GeogSplace blog

Follow Spatialworlds on Twitter

Email contact 
manning@chariot.net.au

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


11 great sites to start planning courses

“Some are new, and some have been around awhile, but all have consistently been those resources that have fostered inquiry-driven, spatially-oriented, project-based education using GIS.”
Joseph Kerski, Esri Education Manager


As I was about to start planning my geography courses for this year, our GIS colleague in the US, Joseph Kerski posted his favourite 20 GIS/Geography orientated sites. Thanks Joseph, you have provided me (and others) with a great list to work with as we look for quality and engaging sites for studnet use.  I have selected 11 of these sites to start my geographical planning for 2013. These 11 sites provide GIS platforms, data, visualisations, imagery, videos, lessons, activities and Web 2.0 capacity to communicate with other spatial educators. These web resources and sites I have previously posted as my favourite on Spatialworlds should keep me busy putting together my courses for the next few weeks.  Gee, we are so lucky these days with such great resources, free and only a click away.

1. Change Matters: http://changematters.esri.com/compare
   Examine landscape changes resulting from natural and human causes using historical and current Landsat satellite imagery from NASA/USGS shown in a side-by-side online GIS from Esri.
2. Worldmapper: http://www.worldmapper.org
   I have always valued the effectiveness of teaching with cartograms, and this site allows you to create cartograms and analyze spreadsheets for hundreds of variables by country. It also allows you to download the data as spreadsheets and bring them into ArcGIS for Desktop for further analysis.
3. GapMinder: http://www.gapminder.org
   Understand the world’s past, present, and future changes through unique visual animated graphs of hundreds of variables.
4. ArcGIS Online: http://www.arcgis.com
   As my colleagues and I have written and created videos about for the past several years, Esri’s ArcGIS Online allows you to make your own customized maps, analyze thousands of data sets from local to global scale, map your own field-collected data, create map-based presentations, save and share your maps with others, and much more.
5. NationMaster: http://www.nationmaster.com and StateMaster: http://www.statemaster.com
   Unique, powerful chart and graph comparison tools backed by data for hundreds of variables by country and US state.
6. Geography Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/geographyuberalles
   1,000 geography-and-GIS-themed movies on ecoregions, scale, fieldwork, biomes, energy, water, population change, GPS, and other topics filmed on location.
7. Geocaching: http://geocaching.com
   Real-world outdoor treasure hunting game using hidden containers on the landscape requiring spatial thinking and GPS to discover them.
8. Esri Education Community: http://edcommunity.esri.com
   Connect with other educators using GIS in the curriculum; discover lessons, data, videos, blog posts, and other documents supporting spatial analysis in the curriculum.
9. GPS Visualizer: http://www.gpsvisualizer.com
   Online mapping utility that creates maps and profiles from GPS data, addresses, and coordinates.
10. Geospatial Revolution: http://geospatialrevolution.psu.edu/
    Professionally-produced series of videos illustrating the use of geotechnologies in society, and the importance of spatial analysis and GIS for 21st Century decision making.
11. NASA Earth Observations: http://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/Search.html
    NASA Earth Observations is a set of georeferenced images for the planet on oceans, atmosphere, energy, land, and life, able to be examined online over space and time, and downloaded into a GIS for further analysis.