October 2: Plouffe Academy, Brockton

42° 04' 48" N
71° 00' 40" W
Source: Steve Morse

We look forward to visiting Plouffe Academy in Brockton on October 2. EarthView Team member Dr. Hayes-Bohanan fondly remembers meeting Plouffe students (who are now adults) the first time he participated in BSC's Turning Leaves program.

Plouffe teachers and students are invited to use the "comment" link below to post questions for the EarthView Team.
Our October 2 visit is on the anniversary of several historic events and birthdays with geography connections.

EVENTS
1608 Prototype of modern reflecting telescope completed by Jan Lippershey
1836 Darwin returns to England aboard HMS Beagle (after 5 years)
1870 Italy annexes Rome and Papal States; Rome made Italian capital
1889 1st Pan American conference (Washington D.C.)
1895 1st cartoon comic strip is printed in a newspaper
1932 Washington Redskins (as Boston Braves) play 1st NFL game, lose 14-0
1949 U.S.S.R. recognizes People's Republic of China
1950 1st strip of Charlie Brown, "Li'l Folks," later "Peanuts" in 9 papers
1956 1st atomic power clock exhibited-NYC
1957 New volcano appears at western end of Faial Island, Azores
(See photo & story or find the volcano on this satellite image.)
1958 Guinea (French Guinea) gains independence from France
1967 Thurgood Marshall sworn in as 1st black Supreme Court Justice
1968 Republic Guinea forms
1971 Homing pigeon averages 133 KPH (record) in 1100-km Australian race
BIRTHDATES:
1869 Mahatma Karamchand Ghandi, Porbandar Kathiawad India, pacifist
1800 Nat Turner, Virginia, leader of major slave rebellion, 1831

Citizens for Citizens Follow-up

As mentioned in the July blog entries, Dr. Hayes-Bohanan co-led an EarthView program with his student Nathan Couto at Citizens for Citizens in Fall River, where Mr. Couto works throughout the year. The organization's blog entry includes photographs of the two geographers and the children who participated, along with a good description of an EarthView program and the program's long-term learning goals.

Driscoll School - September 25

42° 20' 29" N

71° 08' 12" W

Source: Steve Morse

The EarthView team will be traveling to Brookline, where team member Dr. Domingo led a Geography Summer Institute earlier in 2009. Dr. Hayes-Bohanan enjoyed leading one small part of that institute, as he described the geography of Latin America. They both thoroughly enjoyed working with Brookline teachers in the beautiful building that houses the Driscoll School. Dr. Domingo will be at a geography conference during this visit, but Dr. Hayes-Bohanan and the rest of the team are looking forward to the visit.

Our September 25 visit coincides with a great number of geographically signficant anniversaries, including:

1992 Opening Main-Donau canal (North Sea-Black Sea)
1992 U.S. Mars Observer launched from Space shuttle
1987 2nd coup on Fiji led by Major General Sitiveni Rabuka
1984 Egypt and Jordan regain diplomatic relations

1973 Three-man crew of Skylab 3 make safe splashdown in Pacific after 59 days
1965 Beatle cartoon show begins in U.S.
1957 Three hundred US Army troops escort nine African-American children to Central School in Little Rock, Arkansas
1957, 1974, 1980, 1982, and 1983: UK, US and/or USSR nuclear tests, sometimes on the same day
1956 First transatlantic telephone cable goes into operation (Scot-Canada)
1939 Versailles Peace Treaty forgot to include Andorra, so Andorra and Germany finally sign an official treaty ending WW I
1926 Henry Ford announces 8 hour, 5-day work week
1867 Congress creates 1st all-African American university, Howard University in Washington D.C.
1639 First printing press in America
Source: http://www.brainyhistory.com/

Southbrook Academy

41° 59' 25" N
70° 56' 48" W
Source: Steve Morse

Southbrook Academy is a small school with a special significance for EarthView team member Dr. Hayes-Bohanan: his daughter enjoyed six years of nurturing and challenge there, until just over a year ago. So he is delighted to be hosting Southbrook students when they come to an EarthView program at the college. It is a chance to give back a little to a school that has given much to his family!

Whittemore Elementary in the Daily News Tribune

Reporter Joyce Kelly and photographer Bear Cieri enjoyed the EarthView visit to Whittemore Elementary almost as much as the EarthView team did! The photographs capture EarthView at its best -- with students learning.

The report also captures both the richness and the excitement of the experience for the EarthView team, local educators, and students.

Peace Vigil

41° 59' 18" N
70° 58' 26" W
Source: Steve Morse

On Saturday, September 19, EarthView is part of the 24-hour community peace vigil that takes place every year in Bridgewater as part of World Peace Day. EarthView will be set up in the sanctuary at First Parish Church at 50 School Street through much of Saturday afternoon and evenings. Because it is on a platform above the views, it will be seen only from the outside.

Look for photographs after the event!

Henry Whittemore School - Waltham

42° 21' 58" N
71° 13' 48" W
Source: Steve Morse

The EarthView team visited the Whittemore School in Waltham on September 18, 2009. It is the birthday of Lance Armstrong, who was born in 1971.

Some geographically significant anniversaries today are:

1997 Ted Turner gave $1 billion to the United Nations

1990 500-pound Hershey Kiss was displayed in Times Square
1987 U.S. and Russia signed an agreement to remove mid-range missiles
1962 Rwanda, Burundi, Jamaica and Trinidad were admitted (105th-108th) to United Nations
1851 New York Times started publishing at 2 cents a copy
1793 President Washington laid the cornerstone of Capitol building

Upcoming EarthView visits

The EarthView team looks forward to visiting the schools listed below over the coming weeks. Details -- such as the latitude and longitude of each school -- will be included in blog postings to come.

September 18: Henry Whittemore Elementary, Waltham
September 25: Driscoll School, Brookline
October 2: Plouffe Academy, Brockton
October 23: Baker School, Brockton
December 4: James M. Quinn School, Dartmouth

Some dates are likely to be added as we continue to work out schedules with schools that have expressed interest. To bring EarthView to your school, please look at the program requirements on the EarthView web site and use the contact information provided there.

Globe Art

The EarthView team is interested in maps and globes of all kinds, and even during the summer, globes are a big part of what we do ... or a little part, in this case.

A friend of Dr. Hayes-Bohanan noticed the globe painted on the newel post inside his home in Bridgewater, and asked him to do the same at her house.

After months of planning, the project was completed this August. First, the homeowner painted the sphere at the top of the post entirely blue, and then it was allowed to dry thoroughly. Then Dr. Hayes-Bohanan drew the graticule on the sphere in 30-degree increments with a pencil (the high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere were excluded). The twin grooves at the center were taken to represent 5 degrees north and south latitude. Drawing the entire globe freehand would have been impossible, but within each 30x30-degree quadrangle (triangles at the top), it was feasible to draw the continents and major islands with reasonable accuracy. After the painstaking pencil work, painting with exterior house paint required only a few more hours. Both the artist and the homeowners were pleased, and a little geographic education will take place every time a new person visits this house!

The scale of the final result is quite small, roughly 1:100,000,000, about 100 times smaller than EarthView. This means, by the way, that a million of these globes would fit inside EarthView!

See more photos on Flickr.

John J. Ahern School -- Foxborough

42° 4' 27" N
71° 14' 18" W
Source: Steve Morse

... or is it Foxboro? The "boro" towns in Massachusetts often come with two spellings, much like the "ham" towns come with two or three pronunciations.

 The EarthView team is looking forward to its first engagement of the new school year, returning to the Ahern School in Foxborough on Friday, September 11. We are looking forward to our visit, and we invite Ahern students and teachers to post their geography questions here, and to explore the rest of the EarthView blog.

Puzzle and Game Maps

Games have been a popular way to learn geography for centuries -- even before the Internet! In fact, this article at BibliOdyssey mentions that jig-saw puzzles were invented just prior to the American Revolution, and for 20 years, the only depicted maps!

Read the article to learn about pre-1900 geography games, so you know what to look for the next time you are in an antique shop. And keep this tradition in mind the next time you play geography games online!