Northeast Regional Conference on the Social Studies (NERC 2010)

42° 06' 43" N
72° 05' 20" W
Thanks to Steve Morse for his wonderful lat/long finder!






 The EarthView Team -- which includes three members of the Massachusetts Council on Social Studies -- is pleased to be sharing EarthView with our colleagues at NERC 2010. As both a social and natural science, geographers often collaborate with people in many other disciplines, and we are pleased to share EarthView with some of those colleagues at NERC.

We invite our fellow educators to visit our main EarthView web page for information about reserving EarthView, and to use the "comments" link below for any questions they have for the team.

Around the Americas

Around the Americas is an educational scientific expedition that is ENCIRCLING both North and South America in a single oceanic voyage. Follow the progress of this incredible ship and its dedicated crew, as it explores both the diversity of ocean environments and the diversity of land-side ports of call.

Progress as of March 22, 2010:

Katie Spotz arriving in Guyana!

This is a photo of Katie Spotz taken Sunday morning -- from land! Thanks to all of the EarthView students and teachers who have been following her progress with us and learning about the importance of fresh water.

By the time most of you read this, she will have successfully completed her SOLO CROSSING of the Atlantic Ocean in support of clean water.

Katie Spotz nearing arrival

As of Saturday evening, Katie Spotz is very close to her goal of crossing the Atlantic in support of safe drinking water. Visit Row for Water to check her progress, read about all of her challenges and the water projects she is supporting -- and offer your own financial support if you can. She may be arriving as soon as Sunday, March 14!

Row for Water -- nearing the shore!

The EarthView Team has been following the progress of Katie Spotz as she rows across the Atlantic in an effort to raise money for fresh-water projects. The team has personally contributed enough to provide a lifetime of fresh, clean water for eight people. Katie's overall goal is to provide this for 2,000 people -- she needs $60,000, and is very close to that target. If she exceeds the goal before she lands (and she is currently off the coast of Guyana), an anonymous donor will contribute an extra $5,000.

Read our earlier EarthView post about Katie to learn more about her project, and what it has to do with geography! If you donate, please consider mentioning EarthView when you do.

North Andover Middle School -- March 12 & 13

See the math!
42° 41' 36" N



71° 07' 15" W
How many degrees, minutes, and seconds away is your house? Check Stephen Morse for any U.S. address, or an atlas or globe for other places throughout the world.


The EarthView team is delighted to be returning to North Andover Middle School, where we enjoyed a terrific visit last year. This time, we are visiting for two days, so that we can try more extensive programs with each group. This may allow us to develop alternative models for our presentations in future years.

Family commitments preclude Dr. Hayes-Bohanan from participating in the programs this time, but we are delighted that several Bridgewater State College geography students will be part of the EarthView team this time.

Members of the team will also be participating in a special geography family night with Mr. Poirier on Thursday.
We invite North Andover Middle School students to use the "comments" link below to send their geographic questions to the EarthView team!


For this visit, we have two days of Brainy History!

March 11:

1997 Beatle Paul McCartney knighted Sir Paul by the Queen
1990 Lithuania declares its Independence
1918 Moscow becomes capital of revolutionary Russia
1918 Save the Redwoods League founded
1892 1st public basketball game (Springfield, Massachuetts)
1888 Great blizzard of '88 strikes the North East U.S.
1824 U.S. War Department creates the Bureau of Indian Affairs
1302 Romeo and Juliet's wedding day, according to Shakespeare 
March 12:
1994 Church of England ordains 1st 33 women priests
1993 Inkhata leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi begins 2-week speech
1990 Los Angeles Raiders announce they were returning to Oakland
1987 "Les Miserables" opens at Broadway/Imperial New York City for 4000+ performances
1985 Larry Bird scores Boston Celtic record 60 points
1984 National Union of Mine Workers in England begin a 51 week strike
1982 PLO chief Yassar Arafat appears on "Nightline"
1981 Walter R T Witschey installs world's largest sundial, Richmond, Virginia
1976 South African troops leave Angola
1970 U.S. lowers voting age from 21 to 18
1959 U.S. House joins Senate approving Hawaii statehood
1958 British Empire Day is renamed "Commonwealth Day"
1947 President Truman introduces Truman-doctrine to fight communism
1945 New York is 1st to prohibit discrimination by race and creed in employment
1945 U.S.S.R. returns Transylvania to Romania
1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt conducts his 1st fireside chat
1930 Mohandas Gandhi begins 200m (300km) march protesting British salt tax
1867 Last French troops leave Mexico
1849 1st gold seekers arrive in Nicaragua en route to California (before the Panama Canal, of course!)
1789 U.S. Post Office established
1773 Jeanne Baptiste Pointe de Sable found settlement now known as Chicago
1755 1st steam engine in America installed, to pump water from a mine

More on Haiti and Chile earthquakes

Please see this article on Bridgewater's Hope.Help.Haiti blog for links to more information about Chile and Haiti,  including an interview with EarthView's own Dr. Domingo.

Martin Middle School -- March 9

See the math!
41° 52' 39"
71° 02' 05"
How many degrees, minutes, and seconds away is your house? Check Stephen Morse for any U.S. address, or an atlas or globe for other places throughout the world.


On March 9, the EarthView team is traveling to Martin Middle School, where the principal and several teachers have graduated from Bridgewater State College -- including at least one geography major! This is EarthView's second visit to Martin, which has another distinction. During our 2009 visit, Martin students were so excited about geography that they had more questions than we could answer. It was later that day that the EarthView blog was born -- and later the EarthView post cards!


On this day in geographic history:



1991 U.S. 70th manned space mission STS-39 (Discovery 12) launches into orbit
1990 Dr. Antonia Novello sworn-in as 1st hispanic/female U.S. surgeon general
1986 Soviet probe Vega 2 flies by Halley's Comet at 8,030 km
1974 Last Japanese soldier, a guerrilla operating in Philippines, surrenders, 29 years after World War II ended
1962 Egyptian President Nasser declares Gaza belongs to Palestinians
1962 U.S. advisors in South-Vietnam join the fight
1961 1st animal returned from space, dog named Blackie aboard Sputnik 9
1959 Barbie, the popular girls' doll, debuted, over 800 million sold
1942 Construction of the Alaska Highway began
1916 Germany declares war against Portugal
1916 Pancho Villa leads Mexican band raid on Columbus New Mexico, killing 12
1882 False teeth patented
1873 Royal Canadian Mounted Police founded
1562 Kissing in public banned in Naples (punishable by death)
1500 Pedro Cabral departs with 13 ships to India
1497 Nicolaus Copernicus 1st recorded astronomical observation
1496 Jews are expelled from Carintha, Austria


Martin students and teachers: Be sure to use the "comments" link for your geographic questions, and explore the geography and other links on our blog's main menu!

Haiti versus Chile

During our recent EarthView programs, we have been discussing the tragic earthquake in Haiti, in which over 200,000 people are thought to have lost their lives. The more recent earthquake in Chile was over 500 times stronger, as measured by the Richter scale, and although it caused extensive damage and killed many people, the number of deaths is thought to be far under 1,000. To understand why the results are so different, it is helpful to understand both the human and the physical geography. Several physical and human factors come together to explain the disparity.

Depth. The earthquake in Haiti was centered 7 miles below the surface; the Chile earthquake was 21 miles below its epicenter.

Situation. The epicenter of an earthquake is the point on the surface directly above the center of the movement. In Chile, the epicenter was at some distance from the country's second-largest city -- Concepcion -- rather than in the immediate vicinity of the largest city, which was the case in Haiti.

Experience. Chile is located along a very active subduction zone, where the Pacific plate is pushing under the South America plate, creating tremendous tension that is relieved quite frequently by earthquakes. Many of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded have taken place in Chile. For this reason, modern buildings are designed with a combination of strength and flexibility that minimizes damages, and communities are well-organized to provide emergency preparedness and response. Haiti's last major earthquake took place over 200 years ago, so preparation was minimal.

Poverty. A history of colonial and post-colonial extraction of its resources, combined with internal and external political strife, have left Haiti far more impoverished than any other country in the Western Hemisphere. Survival in Haiti in the best of times is challenging; even if the country were to have attempted to be prepared for earthquakes, the financial resources have simply been unavailable.

Frolio Junior High School, Abington -- March 5

See the Math!

42° 07' 06"N

70° 56' 47"W

How many degrees, minutes, and seconds away is your house? Check Stephen Morse for any U.S. address, or an atlas or globe for other places throughout the world.

Our Frolio visit is on March 5, the anniversary of:

1994-Largest milkshake (1,955 gallons of chocolate-Nelspruit South Africa)

1982-Russian spacecraft Venera 14 lands and sends back data from Venus

1978-Landsat 3 launched from Vandenberg AFB, California 

          (Landsat is responsible for many images we have of the earth)

1968-U.S. launches Solar Explorer 2 to study the Sun

1908-1st ascent of Mount Erebus, Antarctica

1877-Rutherford B. Hayes inaugurated as 19th U.S. president

1868-Stapler patented in England by C. H. Gould

1849-Zachary Taylor sworn in as 12th president

1845-Congress appropriates $30,000 to ship camels to western U.S.

1821-Monroe is 1st President inaugurated on March 5th, because 4th was Sun

1807-1st performance of Ludwig von Beethoven's 4th Symphony in B

Check more March 5 events and other dates on Brainy History

Frolio students: Be sure to use the "comments" link for your geographic questions, and explore the geography and other links on our blog's main menu!