Horace Mann School -- Feb 26

See the math!

42° 21' 6.84" N

71° 8' 15.72" W

Coordinates from Stephen Morse. Look up your own and calculate how many degrees, minutes, and seconds you are from the Horace Mann School.

On February 26, our team brought Earthview to the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Allston, Massachusetts. The Horace Mann School was established in 1869 to serve the educational needs of students who are deaf or hard of hearing. We are excited to be part of this school’s tradition academic excellence for the day. We hope Horace Mann students will use the "comments" link to post their geographic questions for the EarthView team!

This week we have a special treat for students and teachers, our team was joined by five exchange students from Manchester Metropolitan University, which is located about an hour from Manchester, England. The students, along with students from Bridgewater State College, are undergraduates participating in a student exchange program for future teachers. The MMU students will help with the presentation and answer questions from students at Horace Mann.

Our February 26 visit was on the the anniversary of some interesting geographic events:

1998-Total solar eclipse in Venezuela-Pacific Ocean        

1980-Egypt and Israel exchange ambassadors for 1st time

1979-Last total eclipse of Sun in 20th century for continental US

1977- 1st flight of Space Shuttle (atop a Boeing 747)

1944- 1st female U.S. Navy captain, Sue Dauser of nurse corps, appointed

1933- Golden Gate Bridge ground-breaking ceremony held at Crissy Field

1885- Congress of Berlin, gives Congo to Belgium and Nigeria to England

Learn more anniversaries and birthdays at Brainy History.

Haiti resources

EarthView team members are part of a wide network of students and faculty at Bridgewater State College who are concerned about Haiti and are doing as much as they can to learn and teach about the country, as well as to assist the Haitian people in their recovery from the earthquake. The BSC-Haiti blog is an ever-growing resource of news about campus projects and educational resources related to Haiti.

February 5: SEMASC Lock-in at Middleborough High School

41° 52' 49" N
70° 52' 27" W
Coordinates from Stephen Morse. Look up your own and calculate how many degrees, minutes, and seconds you are from Middleborough (aka Middleboro) High School.

The EarthView team was pleased to be invited to stay way up past their bedtimes as a special guest of the annual meeting of the Southeast Massachusetts Association of Student Councils (SEMASC) at Middleborough High School.

EarthView usually does not have a DJ. At the SEMASC meeting, hundreds of students had the chance to dancewhile experiencing the earthin a whole new way!

We hope SEMASC students will check back here for photos and post their comments and questions.

Oceania

One of the most important lessons of EarthView is that the earth is mainly covered in water. For decades, Dr. Sylvia Earle has been a leader in helping people to understand and explore oceans. Listen to her conversation with radio host Tom Ashbrook to learn about her work, her leadership as a woman in science, and how she got Google Earth to take oceans seriously! You can even follow the discussion on your own computer, using the new layers in Google Oceans. The Ocean layer includes a lot of links to ocean photos, videos, and more from National Geographic and other partners.

Another surprise for many EarthView visitors is the extent of islands and island chains in the Pacific Ocean. Even for the well-traveled EarthView Team, many of the island nations -- and even the U.S. island territories -- are difficult to place. We are finding the Australia/Oceania quiz from Lizard Point helpful, though we still have a lot to learn about this part of the world.

Who gets to say “Happy New Year” first?

This is a very geographic question, posed from the other side of the world by a friend of the EarthView Team! See the blog posting from the Indian Institute of Geographical Studies for a lot of interesting information -- and maps -- about this question. It includes some surprising information about time zones, such as a small island nation that used to have time zones that were 22 hours apart! (Hint: it is near the zipper on EarthView.)

Dr. Chandra Shekhar Balachandran was a professor of geography at Bridgewater State College close to a decade ago, when he worked alongside EarthView Team members Dr. Domingo and Dr. Hayes-Bohanan. Now he pursues geographic education on the other side of the world, where he is a leader of the Indian Institute. Explore the rest of his site for more about what Dr. Balachandran and his colleagues are doing to promote geographic education.

Row for Water

Katie Spotz is a young Ohioan on a mission that complements one of the major lessons of EarthView. Here she is studying a map of the equatorial portion of the Atlantic as she prepares for a three-month journey rowing from Dakar, Senegal to Cayenne, French Guaina.

EarthView team member Professor James first learned of Katie's project from her interview on NPR's Talk of the Nation program, on which she discussed the importance of timing and location.  Even though her boat and electronic equipment are quite sophisticated, the most important aspect of the journey is that she will be rowing every bit of 2,500 miles. No matter how good the boat is, this feat requires not only extraordinary strength and endurance but also quite careful attention to GEOGRAPHY.

Her route will follow the southern edge of the North Equatorial Current, which itself is the southern portion of the North Atlantic gyre. By leaving Senegal in January, she minimizes the likelihood of major storms (though the boat can handle them) and maximizes the chances that currents will be pushing her in the right direction, toward Cayenne.

Her project is called Row for Water because Katie is traversing salt water as a fund-raiser for a campaign to provide fresh water to 1,000 of the 1,000,000,000 people in the world who do not have a safe and reliable supply. In EarthView, students learn why water can be scarce on a planet that is 70 percent covered by water.

Once Katie departs Dakar, her supporters will be able to track her progress across the Atlantic. Geography students can have classroom contests: How far will she go each day? What will be her fastest day? Her slowest? How close will she get to Cape Verde? When will she arrive in French Guiana? Where will she arrive? What maps can you consult to help you guess some of the answers? What other geographic questions can you think of?

Use the "comment" link below to share the adventure with other EarthView students!

EarthView in a music video

See EarthView in this video about changing the world, from a local New Bedford artist. EarthView makes its appearance at 00:25 seconds.


"Miraculous Apertures" by Tem Blessed from Ben Gilbarg on Vimeo.

November 30: Pinecroft School at Wheaton College

See the Math!
41° 58' 04" N
71° 10' 44" W
For more coordinates, grab your nearest atlas or check out Stephen Morse. Use this information to figure out how many degrees, minutes, and seconds away the school is from home or from any other place on earth!

Dr. Hayes-Bohanan brought EarthView to the Pinecroft school, which several of his daughter's friends at Northbrook Academy have attended. The visit was actually in the field house of nearby Wheaton College in Norton. This is particularly exciting, because of Wheaton's extensive involvement in international research and learning.

Read about the visit and check out the slideshow on the Pinecroft blog.

Some geographic events on the date of the visit include:
1988 Soviets stop jamming Radio Liberty; 1st time in 38 yrs
1974 Most complete early human skeleton found (Johanson and Gray in Ethiopia)
1967 Kuria Muria Islands ceded by Britain to Oman
1967 People's Democratic Republic of Yemen declares independence from U.K.
1967 People's Rep of South Yemen (Aden) gains independence from Britain
1966 Barbados gains independence from Britain (National Day)
1962 U Thant of Burma elected 3rd Secretary-General of United Nations unanimously
1961 U.S.S.R. vetoes Kuwaits application for United Nations membership
1954 1st meteorite known to strike a woman (Liz Hodges -- Sylacauga Alabama)
1907 Pike Place Market dedicated in Seattle (eventually became the first Starbucks)
1872 1st International soccer game, Scotland-England 0-0 (Glasgow)
1866 Work begins on 1st U.S. underwater highway tunnel, Chicago

Learn more anniversaries and birthdays at Brainy History.

Dec 18: Orleans Elementary

Latitude: 41° 46' 53" N

Longitude: 69° 59' 36" W  -- our first program at less than 70 degrees west longitude!
For more coordinates, grab your nearest atlas or check out Stephen Morse

On December 18th, Earthview will be visiting the Orleans Elementary School in Orleans, MA. Our visit happens to fall upon the same date as several historically significant events: 


2005 Bolivia elects leftist Evo Morales president
1980 Vietnam adopts constitution
1969 Britain abolishes death penalty
1966 Dr. Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" airs for 1st time on CBS
1961 India annexes Portuguese colonies of Goa, Damao and Diu
1958 1st voice from space: recorded Christmas message by Eisenhower
1865 13th Amendment ratified, slavery abolished
1777 1st national Thanksgiving Day, commemorating Burgoyne's surrender 


For more events, check out Brainy History

Dec 4th: James M. Quinn School

Latitude: 41° 37' 35" N

Longitude: 70° 57' 48" W
For more coordinates, look at an atlas or use Stephen Morse


We look forward to our visit on December 4th, 2009 to the James M. Quinn School in Dartmouth. Our visit coincides with several important historical and geographical events:

1619 America's 1st Thanksgiving Day (Va)
1945 Senate approves U.S. participation in UN
1963 Aldo Moro forms Italian government
1981 According to South Africa, Ciskei gains independence - Not recognized as an independent country outside South Africa
1982 China adopts its constitution

1908 Birth of: Alfred D. Hershey, U.S. scientist, biologist, worked with bacteriophages, Nobel 1969
1905 Birth of: Emilio Medici, president Brazil, 1969-74

1980 Francisco Sa Carneiro, Prime Minister of Portugal 1980, dies in air crash

For more events, check out Brainy History

Sen. Franken the Geographer

To celebrate Geography Awareness Week in November, National Geographic invited United States Senators to draw maps of their own states. Senator Franken of Minnesota gave his map a lot of thought. Earlier, he drew this map of the United States from memory.

Small Island Developing States

The first thing most people notice when they enter EarthView is just how much of the earth's surface is covered by water. It is nearly 70 percent, but this is not always obvious from maps.

The second thing is just how many islands are found around the world -- and how little we know about most of them. At the Earth Summit in 1992, small, developing countries on islands were identified as having some common characteristics and concerns. The threat of global climate change makes these concerns even more urgent -- not just because of rising sea levels but also because of the vulnerability of tiny ecosystems to change. On large land masses, we might find that growing areas shift by a couple hundred miles; this is not possible on an island that is ten miles wide!

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has created the SIDS program as a way to help with food security on small islands around the world. The SIDS web site can also be useful for those who wish to start learning where some of the small island countries are located.