May 2010 Archives

Which city beginning with the letter "K" has more than 7 million inhabitants living within its metropolitan limits?

Kiev, Kinshasa, or Kuala Lumpur?

If you said Kuala Lumpur, which would have been my guess, you'd be wrong, as was the contestant who attempted to answer the question in the first round of the National Geographic Bee Final yesterday in Washington, D.C. The correct answer, Kinshasa, a city located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is one of the largest in Africa, comparable in size to Johannesburg (South Africa) and smaller only than Lagos (Nigeria) and Cairo (Egypt).

The Bee Final was characteristically exciting--and challenging for us onlookers (even those with degrees in Geography)! Ten contestants--all male--advanced past the semi-final round held Wednesday (a head-to-head match-up among winners from all 50 U.S. states, territories, and Department of Defense Dependents Schools), to compete for a chance at a $25,000 scholarship, a trip to the Galapagos Islands, and a lifetime membership to the National Geographic Society.

 A few highlights from the Final:

Read the May 2010 Newsletter: Go on an Outdoor Adventure!

Inside
May Challenge: Map Your Outdoor Adventure
GeoFeature: Horses...in North Philadelphia??
Geography in the News: Eyjafjallaökull Volcano
Blog: National Geographic Adventure


Plus: Keep reading for more newsletter highlights

The state winners of the National Geographic Bee have been announced!  Many of the winners prepared a brief video about themselves and--what else?--the geography of their states. The videos are posted on YouTube on National Geographic's channel. Here are five of our favorites--if we have to choose ;-)

National Geographic just announced its new class of Emerging Explorers yesterday.



Fourteen visionary, young trailblazers from around the world -- including an electrical engineer, a musician, a bioarchaeologist, a mobile technology innovator and a herpetologist -- are among the 2010 awardees.

"National Geographic's mission is to inspire people to care about the planet, and our Emerging Explorers are outstanding young leaders whose endeavors further this mission. We are pleased to support them as they set out on promising careers. They represent tomorrow's Edmund Hillarys, Jacques Cousteaus and Dian Fosseys," said Terry Garcia, National Geographic's executive vice president for Mission Programs.

We in Education, a part of the "Missions Programs" branch that encompasses non-profit work in research, exploration, conservation, public programs, education, and grantmaking, are just as thrilled as EVP Terry Garcia about the addition of these leading-edge innovators to our family. We hope to work with many of them in our educational outreach over the coming years, so stay tuned for news on upcoming projects!

More on the 2010 Explorers:

Mental Mapping
We all form impressions and images of our physical surroundings--even of places we've never been. These impressions are what geographers call our "mental maps." No one has a totally accurate image of the world, so there is no completely accurate mental map, although people's mental maps of their own immediate environment tend to be more realistic than those of places they've never visited.

To explore more about mental mapping, try this activity with your family:

Map Your Community
First, talk about mental maps.
Mental maps are the pictures of places we have in our mind. Think about some of the ways we use mental maps in day-to-day life, for example, when giving directions to visitors or imagining distant places. Talk about times when you have used mental maps, for example, when walking to school, taking a car ride to the grocery store, planning the quickest shortcut to get to friend's house, or imagining a fantasy world from a novel.

Next, explore different kinds of places in your community and how you feel about them.
Think about places in your community that are important to your family, such as the examples below. Say each example and rate its importance using a scale of 1 to 3, with 1 being unimportant and 3 being very important. Talk about why each is important or unimportant, and why children might disagree about the importance of some places versus others. For example, kids might have different interests (like playing sports or visiting museums, going to the movies or stopping for ice cream).
•    a park or other natural place
•    a church, synagogue, or mosque
•    a museum or arts performance
•    a sports game or amusement park
•    an airport or bus station
•    a shopping mall

Make a map of your community.
After you've decided which places are most important to your family, work together to make a map of your community. Try to estimate approximate distances and directions between landmarks, and include a basic scale bar, legend (key), and compass rose marking directions of North, South, East, and West on your map.

The Global Action Atlas is a new initiative at National Geographic. What is it, exactly? The Atlas is an interactive, map-based tool highlighting local projects around the world. Visitors can connect with the organizations and individuals behind the projects to volunteer, advocate, donate and support worthy causes in a range of ways.

The Atlas is easy to navigate; projects are organized into broad categories such as humanitarian, climate change, exploration, cultures, education, energy and conservation. Each one of these is further separated into smaller categories to make finding projects about specific topics very intuitive.
 
The Atlas lends itself to myriad learning opportunities. For example, a classroom could conduct needs assessments for various countries by analyzing the numbers and types of organizations highlighted on the map. In Honduras, for instance, there are mostly water organizations profiled on the Atlas. Why do you think that is? What might be some potential issues with the data?

A classroom could also adopt a project. This would enable students to participate in global citizenship activities by fundraising or volunteering, and then staying connected through the atlas and social media tools such as Facebook. This would be a good activity for students of all ages, especially college students who often have abundant time, resources, skills and enthusiasm to contribute to projects.

The Atlas is also an excellent resource for conducting research, particularly on niche topics. Under the "culture" category, for example, there is a subcategory about endangered languages. A student wanting to learn more about this could use the atlas to connect with organizations and experts that could help answer their questions and provide data, research opportunities, and other resources.

Want to get started already?! Browse the various categories of projects; I guarantee you'll be amazed by what you find in just ten minutes of playing around. When you see something you like, use the "My Projects" tool to flag your favorite initiatives. Later, you can go back and manage your projects and track their progress individually, or with your school, work, or charity group.

I hope the Global Action Atlas inspires you to action around some of the most vital issues facing nature and society today--did I mention it's free to use?
 
By: Sarah Evans


 

Read the April 2010 Newsletter: "Going Green with Geography" to find out what a dirt cup is, and more!

Inside
April Challenge: Greenscaping: Green Your Yard!
GeoFeature: Celebrate Earth Day Inside
Geography in the News: Casey Trees Community Tree Planting Program
Blog: National Environmental Education Week

Plus: Click to the next page for more newsletter highlights...

This past weekend, April 30-May 1, marked the fourth annual BioBlitz. If you've been following the My Wonderful Blog for the past couple years, you'll be familiar with the concept behind this 24-hour species inventory that is part scientific endeavor, part festival and part outdoor classroom.

The 2010 event held at Biscayne Bay National Park was the first ever underwater 'blitz. More than 1300 students from the Miami area strapped on snorkels and scuba gear to get out in the field--well, ocean--with scientists and identify as many marine organisms as possible--810 by the final count.

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the Bioblitz this year. But luckily, plenty of my colleagues were there to report on the action!

Below is a selection of my favorite BioBlitz posts from BlogWild, the Nat Geo wire edited by Ford Cochran that follows the Society's intrepid explorers as they traverse the globe--as well as some of the 9-to-5 part-time explorers who get to tag along from time to time ;-)

Later in the week, I'll have additional posts from Nat Geo Education staffers who worked with school groups at the event analyzing data using our new Fieldscope tool.

So dip in and stay tuned; in the meantime, follow our coverage of previous BioBlitz events at Indiana Dunes, Santa Monica Mountains, and Rock Creek Park (D.C.).

Students using crayons and a map of the world can draw their best guesses of what the distribution of temperatures is like all around the world in the month of July. This activity can be engaging to students, giving them a chance to draw on what they know in a way that makes them curious about what they don't know. This lesson is based on research that says that if students are asked to articulate their current understanding of a phenomenon before they are taught something new about it, then they learn the new material more effectively because they can connect it to their existing understanding.

Giving people an image of what learning could be like is a really important part of improving education. Students, teachers, administrators, parents, policy makers, and community members have remarkably similar views of what education looks like, and those views have not changed much since we were in school.