Iceland Volcano

People throughout the world are being affected by the eruption of  Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH'-plah-yer-kuh-duhl) in Iceland, because ash and dust are drifting across much of Europe. This affects people traveling to or from Europe, as well as people making connection in European on their way between other parts of the world. See National Geographic News for more photos.

Meteor lands in Midwest

Last Wednesday evening, a half-ton meteor lit up the night sky in the United States Midwest, reminding us of our place in the solar system. See a video captured on a police camera and read about meteor science on National Geographic News.

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN GEOGRAPHERS

EarthView is on display at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers in the historic Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC.
38° 55' 30" N
77° 03' 18" W
Thanks to Steve Morse for his wonderful lat/long finder!

EarthView team member Dr. Vernon Domingo is shown just a bit to the west of his native South Africa in the lobby of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. EarthView is at the AAG meeting as part of our effort to encourage geographic education at all levels in the United States.

Students from the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica point to their homes in Jamaica and Trinidad.

AAG Executive Director Doug Richardson with EarthView.

AAG senior staff member Susan Gallagher played a key role in arranging for EarthView's arrival at the annual meeting.

The EarthView team poses with Wilbur Zelinksy, a world leader in cultural geography scholarship. (L to R: Vernon Domingo, Dr. Zelinsky, James Hayes-Bohanan, and Natalie Regan)

Dr. Michal LeVasseur, a leading geography educator and author who has worked with both National Geographic and the National Council for Geographic Education, points to the Andes Mountains.

Dr. Rick Bein of Indiana University and James Hayes-Bohanan pose in front of Brazil with Rodrigo Capelani, who was one of the first participants in BSC's US-Brazil Consortium on Urban Development (CAPES/FIPSE). Rodrigo completed a semester in Bridgewater before graduating from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. In May of this year, he will receive his master's degree from Miami University in Ohio, where Dr. Hayes-Bohanan received his master's in 1989.

Vernon Domingo (l) and James Hayes-Bohanan enjoyed showing EarthView to Kristin Alvarez, president of the National Council for Geographic Education and University of Redlands, California.

National Geographic intern Sarah Evans, who writes for the My Wonderful World blog, poses with EarthView team member James Hayes-Bohanan. My Wonderful World is an outreach program that -- thanks to creative geographers such as Sarah -- is doing a lot to build interest and enthusiasm around geography. Visit the My Wonderful World blog to find games, photos, maps, and videos that bring geography to life, and to participate in a nation-wide movement to expand geographic literacy. (Dr. Hayes-Bohanan first learned of the blog when it included a story about his teaching geography with coffee in 2008.)

Throughout the conference, geographers -- such as Christopher Shearer of National Geographic -- were encouraging each other to SPEAK UP for their discipline. At a time when the need to understand both human and physical geography could not be greater, the legislative and executive branches have failed to embrace geography as a key component of education. Meeting participants wrote letters urging the inclusion of geography in the reauthorized version of "No Child Left Behind" legislation. Without geography, many children will be left behind their peers in the rest of the world!

Along with a strong Geography Bowl appearance by student Kim Kirkwood and a number of research presentations by faculty members, EarthView ensured that the contribution of Bridgewater State College to the 2010 Annual Meeting will not soon be forgotten!

The perfect conclusion to a day of showing EarthView to thousands of geographers was being on hand when the AAG presented its first-ever Atlas Award to Dr. Jane Goodall. Her reflections on a lifetime of scholarship and humanitarian endeavors were deeply moving.

Long Branch Elementary, April 15

38° 52' 28" N
77° 05' 23" W
Thanks to Steve Morse for his wonderful lat/long finder! Use it to find the angular distance from Long Branch to your own home, to other schools we have visited, or to anywhere on earth! Or use it with an atlas to find the antipode to Long Branch or any other place.

While in Washington, DC to attend the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG), members of the EarthView team were pleased to make their first visit to a school outside of Massachusetts.

Long Branch Elementary is located in Arlington, Virginia, directly across the Potomac River from the District of Columbia. Students and teachers at Long Branch showed a lot of enthusiasm for geography!

Long Branch students with follow-up questions are invited to post comments below.

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!