RIDOT has compiled a great (or horrific) set of images documenting the damage that Hurricane Sandy had on the Ocean State, primarily in coastal neighborhoods. Here is a great compilation of photos throughout the country from the Boston Globe.
See on www.flickr.com
Monday (11/12): GAW Kick-Off Evening –Sean O’Connor from the National Geographic Education Foundation will be our evening keynote speaker at our GAW kick-off event. More details are here.
Tuesday (11/13): Map your Shirt –Today is the first day of GAW and to start off we have a “3 Step Geography Challenge ” for your students. (see attachment). Assign this today and have it due on Friday. Be sure to remove the answers on the right before handing it out. Today is also the first step in students finding out how INTERDEPENDENT they are with spots around the globe. First, try out the GLOBAL CLOSET CALCULATOR with your class. As you work through the GLOBAL CLOSET CALCULATOR you will soon be discussing GLOBALIZATION and TRADE with your students. Finally, have each student work with a partner to find “MADE IN” labels in each other’s clothing. When students discover where an item of their clothing is made have them write it down. Using a large classroom map, use post-it notes to mark where one item of clothing for each student is located.
Wednesday (11/14): GIS Mapping Day –As a follow-up to the “Map your Shirt” exercise, we invite you to take it digitally and join the whole state. This lesson with allow students to upload their information to an ArcGIS.com map. Step-by step instructions on how to do this are here: Shirts and Shoes
ArcGIS also has a gallery of over 40 “StoryMaps” including one called Around the World in 365 Days. Also, There is a famous McDonald’s and Starbucks map that shows some great global interconnections that would be good to show students and to start some discussions. A site called Map Trade is another place to explore global interconnections; here is a classroom activity for the Map Trade site – Map Trade Directions.
Thursday (11/15): Make Your Map –Give each student a 1-page World Political map from the Map Maker Kits. Have them map their clothing items from Tuesday’s activity. Any other global connections students may have may be mapped as well.
Friday (11/16): Map your Birthday –A fun global connection for students is to map their birthday and find which countries or global locations are special connections for them.
Here’s how: Say your birthday is June 16th or 6/16. Using these 2 numbers as latitude and longitude you can find 4 spots on the globe:
Have students indicate these places on their personal map. What does your class notice about everyone’s birthday locations? Add one birthday location from each student to the large classroom map. Today is also the day to collect and discuss (many INTERDEPENDENCE and TRADE possibilities) the “3 Step Geography Challenge” handed out on Tuesday.
Additional Resources:
This November 11-17th is Geography Awareness Week. The theme is Geography: Declare Your Interdependence. National Geographic’s Geography Awareness Week’s website has some great resources including this Global Closet Calculator.
Here are 6 lessons and activities designed around National Geographic’s Mega Maps and Tabletop Maps can be printed with ordinary 8.5 x11 sheets of paper. This is a perfect way to celebrate and get ready for Geography Awareness Week.
RIGEA will announce more events and activities as the time approaches, but the 2012 Bookmark Contest needs to be announced immediately (and please spread the word!) to ensure a good response. Please encourage your students to submit entries (deadline Nov 10th!). For more information and the submission form, see the 2012 Bookmark Contest Form.
See on rigea.org
RIGEA is now on Twitter as well as Facebook. Stay safe! UPDATE: Some communities have over 50% of their residents without power.
This interactive map of coastal Massachusetts and Rhode Island shows some basic flooding data including: 1) where are the flood warnings (essential the entire coastline), 2) how high the storm surge is, and 3) how high the waves are.
Tags: Rhode Island, water, disasters, geospatial.
See on www.erh.noaa.gov
I love National Geographic’s MapMaker Kit as a great way to have students produce their own oversized Mega Maps (8 rows of 17 columns), especially if you only have access to a printer that p…
Here are 6 lessons and activities designed around National Geographic’s Mega Maps and Tabletop Maps can be printed with ordinary 8.5 x11 sheets of paper. This is a perfect way to celebrate and get ready for Geography Awareness Week (Nov . 11-17).
See on rigea.org
The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History is a fabulous resource in Washington D.C., but now this museum available virtually. Teachers can now bring the museums to the classroom with these fantastic Smithsonian virtual tours.
Tags: biogeography, virtual tours, environment, ecology, historical, physical.
See on www.mnh.si.edu
I was able to visit the National Geographic Society’s headquarters in Washington D.C. recently to work on a project to align the new Geography For Life Standards with the Common Core English Language Arts standards. During this visit I was able to tour the facilities including the board room at the top of a majestic staircase with gorgeous historical wall maps.
While this tour was beautiful, intellectually the highlight of this was a tour of the cartography department where I met the meticulous Juan Valdés. The National Geographic has not been able to produce a map of Cuba since 1906. I was astonished as he showed us meticulously edited drafts and revisions (I counted somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 separate versions, but was told that there were 36 distinct drafts) to produce this singular map. As a boy, Juan grew up in Cuba before Fidel Castro came to power so this map became of a labor of love, as he was able to document his patria in a very professional and personal way (for the back story of Juan’s life history, flight from Cuba and making a life life in Florida, see the first 12 minutes of the YouTube video embedded below, and the rest of the video centers on the creation of the map).
His desk (coupled with the view) was the quintessential cartographer’s desk in my mind and embodies spatial thinking, mathematical precision, visual artistry and a passion for understanding place.
This video is a fantastic presentation and here are the accompanying slides (shared with permission, but compressed for easier downloading). Making of the Cuba Map PPTx
See on rigea.org
Here’s a link to the first of a three part article about a crowd-sourced app that is trumping Google’s maps.
This November 11-17th is Geography Awareness Week. The theme is Geography: Declare Your Interdependence. National Geographic’s Geography Awareness Week’s website has some great resou…
Get ready for Geography Awareness week by having your students participate in the Bookmark Contest!
See on rigea.org
MapMaker Kit. Download, print, and assemble maps of the United States in a variety of sizes. The mega map occupies a large wall, or can be used on the floor.
Have you every wanted to create a giant map but aren’t sure if you can logistically pull it off? The National Geographic’s MapMaker kit is just that, a kit for you to create wall maps from a standard printer and tile them together. The assembly itself is a great spatial thinking and fun exercise for students (and there are large world maps as well).
Tags: NationalGeographic, cartography, mapping, K12.
RHODE ISLAND GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION ALLIANCE 