Spatialworlds

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Adelaide, Australia: S: 34º 55' E: 138º 36'

Spatial literacy galore
Some great spatial literacy sites to explore in the classroom.

* The ESRI Demographic Atlas

A GIS atlas of the US showing diversity, population change, ageing and housing.

* Looking at map projections in a simple way with ESRI

Map projections are one of the fundamental concepts of geography and cartography. Selecting the right map projection is one of the important first considerations for accurate GIS analysis. The problem with projections (and the reason why there are so many types) is that it is very difficult to represent the curved 3D surface of the Earth on a flat 2D surface of a map; some distortion is bound to occur.

* An interactive World Wind Map

A fantastic tool for understanding dramatic weather news events around the globe, the history of human civilization or how our activities may be changing the future climate.

* A World Thematic interactive map

An interactive map showing hundreds of different criteria to create thematic maps

* Mapping personality across the US

A multinational team of researchers led by psychologist and American expat Jason Rentfrow of the University of Cambridge in the U.K. has sought to draw the regional lines more clearly, literally mapping the American mood, with state-by-state ratings of personality and temperament.

* Births and deaths mapped in real time

An interactive simulation map of births and deaths around the world.

* Mapping World news

This visualisation shows a world unevenly aglow with television attention.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Observation skills from the air

Image above: Oblique aerial photograph of West Lakes, Adelaide.

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

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

Observation as a skill when using oblique aerial photographs

Observation and questioning are important skills in the Australian Curriculum: Geography. Geographical Skills are described in the curriculum under five sub-headings representing the stages of a complete inquiry. Observing and questioning are highlighted as the first stage of inquiry.

The ACARA site says that:

"Teachers could, for example, provide students with data to represent or analyse rather than have them collect the information themselves. Many inquiries should start from the observations, questions and curiosity of students. Inquiry will progressively move from more teacher-centred to more student-centred as students develop cognitive abilities and gain experience with the process and methods across the years of schooling."

This posting is dedicated to the potential of oblique aerial photographs as a resource to stimulate geographical questioning. In my class I have been using a set of photographs I have snapped out of planes (geography teachers love window seats!) in recent years, asking students to tell me what they see? It is fascinating what they talk about and the activity gives me an opportunity to turn a photograph out of a plane into a geographical discussion early in the course.

Here is a selection of the photographs I use for your interest and use if you wish (just increase size by double clicking on the image and then right mouse click to 'Copy Image' or 'Save As Image' as a JPEG). They range from suburban, coastal, rural, mountain to urban.

When I present the oblique aerial photographs to the students I ask them to:

*Firstly, try to describe all the natural and cultural features evident in the photography.

*Secondary, look to see if you can see any patterns, distributions, trends in the features you have described in the photography.

* Finally, try to explain why things are where they are - the 'why of the where' of geography

Image 1: Adelaide CBD

Image 2: Snow covered mountains somewhere over Italy

Image 3: Suburban Adelaide landuse

Image 4: Farmland on Yorke Peninsula, South Australia

Image 5: Suburban Perth

Image 6: Coastal engineering, south of Rome

Image 7: Coastal South Australia

Image 8: Sydney CBD

Image 9: Glenelg, South Australia

Image 10: New York

Thursday, January 30, 2014

A picture (or cartoon) is worth a 1000 words!

Image above: A cartoon from the excellent cartoon blog called wronghands by John Atkinson

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http://wronghands1.wordpress.com/page/2/

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

Google Street View images

In the process of capturing the world under a lens, Google’s cameras have managed to take some of the most incredible,non-edited pictures the world’s ever seen? This amazing library of images from Google Street View are ready for the picking to use in the classroom.

Humour is a good and useful thing in the geography classroom

* Visit the following to view some great cartoons, many with a geography/society and culture relevance (sorry, some of the sites are copyright marked but still good for a geographical laugh)

http://education.nationalgeographic.com.au/education/cartoon/?ar_a=1

http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/g/geography.asp

http://www.thecomicstrips.com/subject/The-Geography-Comic-Strips.php

http://www.offthemark.com/cartoons/geography

http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/subject/The-Geography-Comics-and-Cartoons.php

Here is a presentation from AGTA Chair, Grant Kleeman to support the use of cartoons in the geography classroom

Friday, January 24, 2014

They keep coming!

Image above: Map of personalities in the US.

Related links to Spatialworlds
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:

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

Data visualisations with a twist!

Great visualisations just keep on coming as I trawl the Internet via Scoop.it and curating my Spatial Literacy Scoop.it site. Here are just a few.

The FlowingData site

This is a fascinating data visualization site worth a look. Some of the visualizations makes one wonder their use or veracity (porn searches) but they all provide some great talking points, demonstrating the power of spatial technology. Here are just three of the ones I found most interesting.

Personal space How much space each person has in some of the world's major cities? The interactive shows 20 countries and each is represented by a circle sized by average square feet per person. Of course, as with population density, this data is broad with land distribution and usage to consider, but it's informative from a general viewpoint.

Food deserts

The map shows a sample of locations across the country, and line length represents distance to the nearest store. For example, in areas with a lot of lines headed to one spot is an area with fewer grocery stores. In contrast, mostly small line segments mean more grocery stores, and therefore less distance to travel to buy groceries.

Places where residents have limited access to grocery stores are called food deserts.

Mapping personality

For a country that features the word United so prominently in its name, the U.S. is a pretty fractious place. The country is split along fault lines of income, education, religion, race, hyphenated origin, age and politics. Then too there’s temperament. We’re coarse or courtly, traditionalist or rebel, amped up or laid-back. And it’s no secret that a lot of that seems to be determined by — or at least associated with — where we live.

Now a multinational team of researchers led by psychologist and American expat Jason Rentfrow of the University of Cambridge in the U.K. has sought to draw the regional lines more clearly, literally mapping the American mood, with state-by-state ratings of personality and temperament.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Turning on to geography

Image above: Awe-inspiring BBC video called 'Race against the tide."

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http://chartporn.org/2013/12/30/revealed-cartographic-ignorance/

Where am I??

Adelaide, Australia: S: 34º 55' E: 138º 36'

Turning on to 2014 geography lessons

Welcome to the 2014 teaching year. One of our first tasks with a class is to turn them on to geography and all that it encompasses. Here are just a few of the great video resources on-line that may have a place in your first few lessons of motivation and stimulation! As the Australian Curriculum: Geography states as its first aim is to ensure that students develop:

a sense of wonder, curiosity and respect about places, people, cultures and environments throughout the world

Hard not to develop that sense of wonder and curiosity after watching these videos. It is also worth having another look at the Spatialworlds blogpost from 2012 titled: The WOW factor of geography: WOW = World of Wonder!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDk06h7Abbw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbgai3dK16Q

http://geographyeducation.org/articles/start-of-the-year-videos/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=QwbToV-FvsU

http://www.animationnation.com/man-steve-cutts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nGeXdv-uPaw

Thursday, January 16, 2014

So many, so different!

Image above: The National Geographic Interactive Map called 'Where and how we live'.

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