A great starting point for a discussion on global perception of democracy

              

Email contact:

malcolm.mcinerney@unisa.edu.au

HaSS links

HaSS Association Australia

Australian Geography Teachers' Association website

Geography Teachers Association of South Australia

History Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of Australia
Humsteach
GeogSpace
Geogaction

People don't think their countries are very democratic - even in democracies

The map above shows how democratic they feel their government and country to be (the % that say that their country is currently democratic). What a great starting point to start teaching about Global democracy and democratic perceptions of people around the world. 

The data comes from the Democracy Perception Index, and is not an objective measure of democracy but a subjective measure of how democratic they perceive their country as being.

Only about half the world (58%) says their country is democratic. Greece is considered the least democratic by its people (43%) out of all countries labelled as “free” democracies by Freedom House.

Just a random interesting map re: dreams around the world ... or does it tell us more

Email contact:

malcolm.mcinerney@unisa.edu.au

HaSS links

HaSS Association Australia

Australian Geography Teachers' Association website

Geography Teachers Association of South Australia

History Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of Australia
Humsteach
GeogSpace
Geogaction

Mapping dream searches

The map above shows the most frequently searched dreams by country, categorized into themes like The Human Body, Animals & Nature, Love & Relationships, Money & Objects, Family, and Death. What does it tell us about what is happening in different countries. Yes, geography via random maps. To create this map, Google search data for every country was entered in a spatial data base.

For example, snakes are the most common dream in many countries worldwide. Teeth falling out is a significant dream theme in North America and parts of Europe.  Dreams related to Marriage and Pregnancy are also prevalent in various regions.

Each country is color-coded based on the theme of its most common dream.

For more information about this map go to https://brilliantmaps.com/the-most-common-dreams-by-country/ and watch the video.

Mapping the UK election in 2024

 

Some thematic maps of the 2024 UK election - published in September 2024.

Email contact:

malcolm.mcinerney@unisa.edu.au

HaSS links

HaSS Association Australia

Australian Geography Teachers' Association website

Geography Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of Australia
Humsteach
GeogSpace
Geogaction

Thematic mapping of different types is a powerful way to display election data for analysis. At the last ESRI user conference in San Diego in July 2024, different ways to map the results of the last U.K. parliamentary election were shown. In particular, how the thematic mapping changed from the previous election. The following posts discuss how each presenter went about their mapping tasks: 

Kenneth Field at https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-pro/mapping/a-melange-of-maps/ and John Nelson at https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-pro/mapping/how-to-make-this-thematic-map-and-stuff/

Some fantastic examples of authentic and useful thematic mapping. We look forward to see similar maps for the next Federal election in Australia in 2025 (to be held  on or before 27 September 2025). Keep posted - there should be some great data to map after the election.

The power of maps to make sense of the world - or just question why!

 

The map above shows where Twitter (aka X) is blocked or restricted. 

Email contact:

malcolm.mcinerney@unisa.edu.au

HaSS links

HaSS Association Australia

Australian Geography Teachers' Association website

Geography Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of South Australia
History Teachers Association of Australia
Humsteach
GeogSpace
Geogaction

Check out the new HaSS Association Australia at https://hassaa.org.au/

Hi all!

I have been busy for the past 6 years and neglected the Spatialworlds blog - sorry about that but life got in the way! Here is the start of the blog again, now that I am teaching geography at Uni SA in Adelaide. Time to get into all things geographical and spatial again.

With the discussion on the role of social media in our society, I thought this map showing where Twitter (X) is blocked is a great starting point to discuss freedom of information and the role of governments in the HaSS classroom.

Posts such as this one will be brief and provide just one or two examples of resources. A great site to get such maps is Brilliant maps at https://brilliantmaps.com/ There are maps of everything on this site, some you really scratch your head about why they have made them, i.e. the map below on preferred sauce on chips in the UK  is such an example of map porn! I am sure the creative HaSS teacher can find a purpose for such a map - even if just to say "it is just interesting and why is there such a range of sauce use across space?"

I am looking forward to share my love of geography with you again over coming years. I am afraid many of the links on previous Spatialworlds blogs do not work now - I hope these new ones make up for that!