October 2011 Archives

As a fresh way to kick off the work week, My Wonderful World is now bringing our readers a Monday-Funday Photo of the Week.  Designed not only around aesthetics, this photo sharing start-to-the-week is also about facilitating geographic discussion on current events and relevant topics. 

A holiday favorite for many Americans, the geography, economics, and history of Halloween is a largely untold story of much more substance than costumes and candy.

EARLY HISTORY
Samhain, the alleged precursor to Halloween, was a celebration of the Celtic New Year that took place as many as 2,000 years ago. According to an article written for National Geographic News by James Owen, the festival marked the end of the Celtic year, when the harvest was gathered and animals were rounded up. As for early forms of costumes, it was during this celebration that, the hides of cattle and other livestock slaughtered at this time were ritually worn during festivities that likely hark back to even earlier pagan beliefs. Samhain may have also been the start of tying fear, death and the afterlife to our modern-day conception of Halloween. According to Owen, Samhain night was also a celebration of the dead--the one time the spirits were believed to walk among the living. Under the emergence of the growing popularity of Christianity, the pagan-influenced celebration was changed during, the seventh century [when] Pope Boniface IV decreed November 1 All Saints' Day, or All Hallows' Day. (from National Geographic News)

U.S./MODERN HISTORY
It wasn't until the 19th century that European immigrants brought Halloween to the United States, and the celebration really gathered steam in the 1800s, when Irish-American immigration exploded. Historians believe that Anoka, Minnesota, may be home to the United States' oldest official Halloween celebration. Beginning in 1920, the city began staging a parade and bonfire. Nearly 100 years later, the tradition is still very much alive in the United States and still growing in popularity.

ECONOMICS
A record-breaking 161 million people plan on celebrating Halloween in 2011, the highest in the National Retail Federation (NRF)'s nine years of surveying Americans about their Halloween habits. This averages out to mean that seven in 10 Americans, or 68.6 percent, plan to celebrate Halloween, up from 63.8 percent last year, according to NRF.  To this fact, "the average person will spend $72.31 on decorations, costumes, and candy, which is up from $66.28 last year. Total expenditures for the holiday should reach $6.86 billion."

When: Nov 02, 2011 07:00pm ET - Nov 02, 2011 08:00pm ET
Who: Daniel Raven-Ellison from The Geography Collective, London, UK
Where: Click this link to register!

What: This opportunity is in the form of a webinar (virtual classroom/discussion) in which Daniel Raven-Ellison, partner for National Geographic Education Mission:Explore project, will join us from London for a live presentation about this year's Geography Awareness Week Theme: "The Adventure in Your Community". During the webinar, Daniel will explain the Mission:Explore project and explain the theory behind mission-based learning and guerrilla geography. Register online and learn how to make the very most of the Geography Awareness Week resources to support geo-literacy and learning in any classroom.

More about Mission:Explore and the connection to Geography Awareness Week:

Your mission if you're willing to accept it...

Participate in this year's Geography Awareness Week (GA Week) by becoming involved with Mission:Explore, a project that will revolve around a series of "missions." The missions can be completed by individuals or teams of students, families, or friends. Work to earn "badges" in the four sub-theme categories of  photography, storytelling, mapping, and taking action and compare your scores with others on the Mission: Explore website!

The imaginative missions with titles such as "become a remote sensor" "cross the border" and "alien invasion" encourage participants to explore their own communities through geographic eyes, and challenge them to look at things from a geographic perspective. The missions are aligned with U.S. geography standards to help educators best incorporate them into their teaching. You too can join us as we explore the theme for GA Week, "The Adventure in Your Community"  by completing these creative mini-adventures.

...Are you willing to accept the mission? Good luck explorers!
--Julia from My Wonderful World

The MWW Blog is launching a new series called "Wednesday Word of the Week." This feature will contribute to our ongoing work educating the public about geo-literacy--the ability to use geographic knowledge to make informed decisions about the dynamic world we live in. Geo-literacy is a relevant, applicable, and global tool; it is a communicative bridge between the peoples, places and possibilities of our earth.

Echolocation: [biological geography]
Noun: the sonarlike system used by dolphins, bats, and other animals to detect and locate objects by emitting usually high-pitched sounds that reflect off the object and return to the animal's ears or other sensory receptors. (Dictionary.com)

Beyond hunting prey, dolphins can also use echolocation to "carry all sorts of complex information about whether a dolphin is pregnant, what mood it's in, and what's around it," (Steve Dawson, a marine mammal researcher at the University of Otago in New Zealand)

Echolocation has even been researched in humans! Check out this short video from National Geographic to learn more about the science behind our Wednesday word of the week.

This Wednesday's word of the week is inspired by National Geographic Young Explorer, Eric Patterson, and his graduate research on tool use among dolphin populations. According to Eric, "dolphins are well known for their exquisite echolocation abilities, which enable them to detect and discriminate prey species and even locate buried prey." Check out the link above to read more on Eric's amazing research project!

The Wednesday Word of the Week is just one way to start expanding the breadth of your geographic vocabulary. Some words you'll recognize, and some will be new. Regardless of whether you know the word or not, we at National Geographic Education challenge you to use our words of the week.  Whether in the classroom, in everyday conversation, through the arts, or simply by checking out our provided links, we encourage you to make great use of our words in creative ways!

Photo Credits: Your Shot, Alex Kaufman
--Julia from My Wonderful World

Anyone who is a self-described map geek--and we number many here at National Geographic Education--can cite some formative early experiences with maps, both real and imaginary. For me, it was the Candyland map, a delicious marriage of my fledgling passions for sugar and space. I used to love to manipulate my game piece through this colorful fantasyland of gumdrop mountains and lollypop woods.

For Frank Jacobs, it was a map of the mysterious world of J.R.R Tolkien's Middle Earth, and an incidental connection between the made-up Bree and his family's ancestral home in the real-world Bree, in Belgium.

In the first installment of a new New York Times series called In Praise of Borders, Jacobs recounts his childhood experiences navigating Bree, in a curious corner of Europe's German-Belgian-Dutch region shaped by a unique history. It is at once a personal yet relatable narrative.

As a fresh way to kick off the work week, My Wonderful World is now bringing our readers a Monday-Funday Photo of the Week.  Designed not only around aesthetics, this photo sharing start-to-the-week is also about facilitating geographic discussion on current events and relevant topics.

Located at the heart of Northern Africa, Libya's geography plays a central role in international relations, providing a physical link between Southern Europe and the regions of North Africa and the Middle East. In terms of spatial dispersion, according to Wikipedia, "ninety percent of the people live in less than 10% of the area, primarily along the coast in the three largest cities of Tripoli, Benghazi and Misrata."

Spurred in part by the neighboring revolutions of Tunisia and Egypt, the country's recent liberation from the ruling power of Muammar Gaddafi ("King of Kings of Africa"), has the spotlight of this week's photo blog. According to Reuters, the French foreign ministry noted that, "We are confident in the Libyan people, who have courageously set themselves free of 42 years of dictatorship, to construct a state of law, conforming to the principles and universal values shared by the international community...we will be vigilant about human rights."

The Libyan people are now looking to Mustafa Abdul Jalil, head of the National Transitional Council, for leadership. Jalil has announced that an interim government will be in place within the next month and will remain until proper elections can be held.  

In line with the French foreign ministry, I too wish the best for Libya and hope that the country can move forward in peace and in grace toward the goals of local independence and global opportunity.

--Julia from My Wonderful World
Photo Credits: Your Shot, Ivan LaBianca & David Lynch

BioBlitz 2011 is on! Tune in this Friday and Saturday for the annual celebration of biodiversity in Saguaro National Park, Tuscon, Arizona! Go to the event virtually through the free electronic field trip (1pm and 4pm EST Friday, October 21). Also, check out the amazing interactive map of Saguaro National Park where you can follow along with the event by tagging species to the map! Below are some FAQ's regarding the 2011 event and how you can get involved!

What is BioBlitz?:
BioBlitz is a 24-hour event in which teams of volunteer scientists, families, students, teachers, and other community members work together to find and identify as many species of plants, animals, microbes, fungi, and other organisms as possible. A BioBlitz gives adults, kids, and teens the opportunity to join biologists in the field and participate in bona fide research expeditions. It's a fun and exciting way to learn about the biological diversity of local parks and to better understand how to protect them. National Geographic is helping conduct a BioBlitz in a different national park each year during the decade leading up to the U.S. National Park Service Centennial in 2016. --www.natgeoed.org

What are the goals of  BioBlitz?:

• Count, map, and learn about the park's diverse organisms, ranging from microscopic bacteria to migrating birds, elusive mountain lions to 200-year-old cacti.
• Provide scientists, school kids, and the general public an opportunity to conduct fieldwork together.
• Add to the park's official species list.
• Highlight the importance of protecting the biodiversity of this extraordinary place.

To help inspire you, here is a selection of some of my favorite highlights from previous Geography Awareness Week blog-a-thons.

1. The Huffington Post's satirical blog post entitled: "Let's Boycott Geography Awareness Week" (GAWeek 2010: Freshwater)"...But, honestly, no one should really care about things like outside geography when we already know the US is the center of the universe. So I'm calling for a boycott of this fruity Geography Awareness Week. All we need to know is right here nestled between our über-secure borders anyhow."

2. Cycle for Water by Joost Notenboom and Michiel Roodenburg (GAWeek 2010: Freshwater): "About four months ago we (Joost and Michiel, from the Netherlands) started our bicycle trip that will take us from Alaska to Argentina. By now, we have successfully passed through Alaska, Canada, and the United States, and entered Mexico last week. So far, we have cycled about 4,000 of the total 18,000 miles and still have a long way to go until we reach the finish by Christmas next year. On average, we do 50 miles a day, which is about 6 hours of cycling. It can be pretty tough, especially when plowing through rain, crawling over mountains, and sweating under the scorching sun.

Besides the cycling, we are raising awareness for the global water crisis, which is leaving more than a billion people without access to clean drinking water. The population of second and third world countries are the ones that are most affected with this issue. However, water scarcity is, and will increasingly become, problematic in the 'rich West' as well."

3. Google Earth's Geography Awareness Week blog and quiz circa 2006. You can still test your African knowledge through the interactive quiz that is download-able here.

In the United States, the geography education community celebrates Geography Awareness Week in the third week of November. Established by presidential proclamation in 1987, Geography Awareness Week is an opportunity to build awareness of the importance of geography education for our modern world. On Wednesday of that week is GIS Day, which has been celebrated around the world since 1998.

This year, Geography Awareness Week will be November 14-20. Its theme, "Geography: The Adventure in Your Community," invites participants to see their communities through a geographic lens, discovering new things about the places where they live.

Geography Awareness Week has five interconnected components:

• Activities--Each year, organizers and participants design activities tied to the theme of that year's Geography Awareness Week that demonstrate the importance of geography. There are activities that can be done by individuals, classes, families, and community groups.   
  
• Events--Throughout the country, individuals and organizations hold events that celebrate geography. Held at schools, workplaces, government offices, shopping malls, and even sporting events, they provide opportunities for people to see geography in action and learn while having fun.
• Media outreach--Geography Awareness Week is an opportunity to get the word out about the importance of geography through the media. In addition to a long-standing partnership with the Newspapers in Education project, the outreach efforts for Geography Awareness Week extend to radio, TV, and digital media organizations.
• Activism--Geography Awareness Week provides an occasion for individuals to show their support for geography education. Many individuals visit or contact their elected officials during Geography Awareness Week to advocate increased attention to geography education.
• Volunteerism--Geography Awareness Week is largely the product of volunteer effort. Volunteers create activities, organize events, mobilize advocates, and reach out to the media.
  

Continue reading Danny's column here.
You can follow Daniel Edelson on Twitter at NatGeoEdelson

Haplogroups: [human geography]
Noun: branches on the tree of early human migrations and genetic mutations of "markers" found on the Y chromosome (NatGeoEd.org); the study of haplogroups is commonly used to define genetic populations.(Reference.com)

All humans belong to a halpogroup, this enables geneticists to follow the ancestry of ancient humans all the way to the present day.  Inspired by the "tree" of human life, National Geographic and partners embarked on the Genographic Project. The Genographic Project studies where our early human ancestors came from and how humans came to populate the entire planet. Following genetic markers through thousands of human generations enables scientists to track our human origins back to Africa and to determine the pattern of routes by which humans migrated around the world. Researching the characteristics and journeys of specific haplogroups can help students understand how people from distant places are genetically related. (www.natgeoed.org)

Monsoonal flooding this October has led to serious mayhem throughout the country of Thailand. Bangkok, Thailand's capitol and beating heart, is currently under threat of drowning in the overflow of the Chao Phraya River, which runs alongside the city (the photo of the teenage boys in this river was taken by me in June, 2011).  Bangkok, a low-elevation city that is a bulls-eye for flood waters, may be saved from complete destruction, however,  thanks to increased defensive flooding preparation.  CNN reports that, "the water has already turned parking lots into marinas, markets into lakes and houses into homes suitable only for fish. It has gushed into houses of the holy--Buddhist temples stood amid rising water--and into sanctuaries of the vulnerable."

Not only a challenge for the people of Thailand, the city's elephant population is now in a position to potentially starve to death.  As many as 15 elephants climbed to the top of Ayutthaya's Royal Elephant Kraal building to escape the severe flooding, and are now trapped and hungry, surviving on small boats of food brought to them by rescue teams. Just this morning, Reuters announced that "the flooding has killed 297 people since late July and caused $3 billion in damage." A third of the country is under water, but officials are confident that low-lying Bangkok will be spared after the strengthening of its system of defensive dikes and canals.

Only time will tell how much the final flood toll will cost the country; what is already certain is that the economy, people, and landscape of Thailand will suffer for months to come as they recover from this horrible natural disaster.

Photo Credits: Julia Guard; My Shot Your Shot, Roengrit Kongmuang & Eleni Kasotaki
--Julia from My Wonderful World

Let's Jump!, a National Geographic Kids movement to promote active, healthy life styles for kids, joined with Michelle Obama October 11-12th in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for most people doing jumping jacks. Participants had a 24 hour window to preform, document, and submit proof of one full minute of jumping jacks in order to be counted towards the record.  It will require over 20,000 submissions to set a new world record and final results will still take a few weeks to be tabulated. From what we have seen so far, the event was quite successful; it connected students, clubs, sport teams and friends across the world to compete for a common goal. This week's Five for Friday celebrates an amazing effort in childhood health and education by bringing you five highlights from the event!

1. Michelle Obama's commitment to the event and her participation! Not to mention the additional 500 local school children who joined her on the White House lawn. Michelle was quoted saying, "As a first lady I get to do a lot of cool things, but this is really exciting. I never thought in my entire life I would be setting a Guinness World Record!" See more coverage on the event from The White House Blog.

2. Adorable kindergartners from Phillips Elementary School doing jumping jacks and their reactions to the Let's Jump event:

• "Jumping Jacks were ok, but it'd be awesome to be in the Guinness World Records Book!"
• "I think doing jumping jacks after lunch was really fun! I'm usually so tired after lunch, but now I'm really awake."
• "I really liked doing it with my whole class. Even Ms. Sykes jumped with us!"
  

3. The event resulted in more than 350 media hits from major news outlets across the nation and around the world including:  NBC, FOX, ABC, CBS, TIME, NPR, USA Today, The Washington Post, and more! Celebrities such as U.S. figure skater Michelle Kwan and NBC weather man Al Roker helped host the White House event!

A band that calls itself "Staff Benda Bilili" uses music to stun, inspire, and beautifully blend the highs and lows of life in Kinshasa, the capitol of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  With instruments made from garbage scraps and cardboard boxes for bedding, Staff Benda Bilili was first discovered by French film directors Florent de la Tullaye and Renaud Barret playing on the streets in 2004. Funded to record and release their music, Staff Benda Bilili's popularity has grown substantially throughout Europe.  Having once showcased their talent in a dilapidated old zoo, Staff Benda Bilili now performs their eclectic music in concerts across the globe, diffusing a message of hope to eager ears. Their story is of a group of men with humble beginnings who rose out of poverty and achieved fame, however, what makes Benda Bilili unforgettable is not only the culmination of their journey but the unique challenges they face along the way.
In Lingala (a Bantu language spoken mostly in the Northwestern region of the DRC), Benda Bilili means "look beyond appearances," a fitting name for a band whose first appearance may be surprising for unprepared eyes. Second only to the quality of their musical talent in significance, appearance is central to Benda Bilili's initial struggle to be heard. Several members of the band suffer from permanent paralysis as a result of battles with childhood polio.  Polio is a crippling and potentially fatal infectious disease. There is no cure, but there are safe and effective vaccines. The strategy to eradicate polio is based on preventing infection by immunizing every child until transmission stops and the world is polio-free (Global Polio Eradication Initiative). While vaccines are widely administered in most areas of the world, due to their geographic location, low socioeconomic status, and particular situation within the local culture, the members of Benda Bilili were not fortunate enough to be vaccinated for polio.  Well into their adult lives, the polio makes them unattractive candidates for most job opportunities in the DRC, which eventually lands them in shelters and long, sleepless nights spent on the streets. Forced into an extenuating life circumstances, the men join together as a band to use music as an expression of their troubles and joys in being both homeless and handicapped.

Paleontology: [pey-lee-uhn-tol-uh-jee]
Noun: the study of the history of life on Earth as based on fossils. Fossils are the remains of plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, and single-celled living things that have been replaced by rock material or impressions of organisms preserved in rock.

Paleontologists use fossil remains to understand different aspects of extinct and living organisms. Individual fossils may contain information about an organism's life and environment. Much like the rings of a tree, for example, each ring on the surface of an oyster shell denotes one year of its life. Studying oyster fossils can help paleontologists discover how long the oyster lived, and in what conditions. (NatGeoEd.org)

Want to see paleontology in sweet 3D action? Watch National Geographic Entertainment's Flying Monsters 3D, a film that sets out to uncover the truth about the dinosaur cousin, the pterosaur, with a wingspan of approximately 12 meters (40 feet) and equal to that of a modern-day jet plane. Flying Monsters 3D features one of the greatest mysteries in paleontology and attempts to answer questions like, "How did creatures the size of giraffes defy gravity and soar through prehistoric skies?" Check out the trailer below or visit the website for a list of theaters near you. Teachers can find activities for students K-12 in our Flying Monsters Education Collection.

1. Mother Teresa: A Catholic nun and a geography teacher at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta, this Nobel Prize-winning humanitarian is, to this day, one of the most famous icons of peace.
2. Alexander Von Humboldt: An early 19th century explorer and naturalist, this world-famous geographer is considered by many "the founder" of fields such as ecology, oceanography, physical geography, and climatology. Author of "Cosmos: Draft of a Physical Description of the World," Humboldt continues to live on through his writings and science foundation.
3. Michael Jordan: Most famous for being one of, if not the, greatest professional basketball players of all time, this 'hoopster' got his undergraduate degree in cultural geography, making geography the highest paid major out of North Carolina's graduating class of 1986!

4. Prince William: A now newly-wed, Prince William spent much of his courtship of the beautiful Kate Middleton with his nose buried in geography books. The prince graduated from St. Andrews University with a Masters degree in geography. According to BBC News, he wrote his 10,000-word dissertation on the coral reefs of Rodrigues.
5. Marco Polo: Known by U.S. children under the age of eight as the inspiration for a fun swimming-pool past-time, this famous geographic explorer is best known in the historical record for his careful documentation and mapping of the Silk Road.

Questions, comments, concerns? E-mail us at NatGeoEd@ngs.org
Photo Credits: My Shot Your Shot, Sharon Esparza & Simon Rhodes
--Julia from My Wonderful World

My perspective on cultural geography has been humbled by the stories of brave girls stripped of their innocence by depths of "tradition" all over the world. It started as a regular Monday night--I volunteered at a presentation given by the researcher and writer of Child Brides: Too Young to Wed, an article in the June 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine-- it culminated in an experience that I will not soon forget. Sometimes as young as two and three years old, more commonly twelve to fifteen, girls around the world (see photos here) share one startling thing in common: marriage.

Marriage, a term that at the age of twenty-two still gives me a feeling of slight discomfort, like slowly having my air supply cut off. My education has told me that child marriage is not only morally wrong, but also socially distasteful, shameful and, not to mention, utterly illegal. Yet, Monday night I sat stunned.  My education is not universal; my practices do not represent the majority.  I am a product of my cultural education, situated in society in exactly the same way these girls are placed into "underage" marriage (a relative term).  While I would like to think myself and my cultural education more correct under the Western system of freedom in marriage, I cannot fairly write-off the practices, history, and lifestyles of those raised under a different set of rules. They are there. I am here. Their culture says "yes."* My culture says "no." Our world is filled with shades of gray, and that concept is one of the single most important lessons in cultural geography.  We can not force assimilation, nationalism, or our own social standards onto other cultures.

The presenters, Cynthia Gorney and Stephanie Sinclair, stressed the importance of acknowledging a sense of duality on the issue, stating that they themselves felt the spectrum of emotions when faced with such a complicated matter. To be fair, respectful and unbiased researchers and journalists, they had to see the other side. From a local vantage point, many community members see the early marriage of these young girls as a system of protection, "understood by whole communities as an appropriate way for a young woman to grow up when the alternatives, especially if they carry a risk of her losing her virginity to someone besides her husband, are unacceptable." (Child Brides, NGM) In places where education is limited for girls, where public transportation is unsafe, and where life in a rural village is the only option, the bond of marriage acts to bind families, to shield young girls from rape and abandonment and is, at times, an acceptable religious practice in the community. According to a Yemeni member of parliament named Mohammed Al-Hamzi, "Islam does not permit marital relations before a girl is physically ready, he said, but the Holy Koran contains no specific age restrictions and so these matters are properly the province of family and religious guidance, not national law. Besides, there is the matter of the Prophet Muhammad's beloved Ayesha--nine years old, according to the conventional account, when the marriage was consummated." (Child Brides, NGM)  It is this contradiction of cultural tradition with social norms that makes the concept of child brides so frustrating to consider and even more difficult to work with.

The MWW Blog is launching a new series called "Wednesday Word of the Week." This feature will contribute to our ongoing work educating the public about geo-literacy--the ability to use geographic knowledge to make informed decisions about the dynamic world we live in. Geo-literacy is a relevant, applicable, and global tool; it is a communicative bridge between the peoples, places and possibilities of our earth.

Biomimicry: (bi-oh-MIH-muh-kree)        
Noun: process of using the natural world as a guide to develop new technology. (NatGeoEducation)
Check out the Biomimicry Institute for more information on educational projects, partnerships, videos, and recent innovations. Click here to watch their latest video featuring Biomimicry 3.8!

Biomimetics: [bahy-oh-mi-met-iks]
From National Geographic magazine's "GeoPedia: the research behind the stories"
By Nora Gallagher (ver. 4 - Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 12:38:11 PM)
Almost all living organisms are uniquely adapted to the environment in which they live, some so well that scientists study them in hopes of replicating their natural designs in products and technologies for humans. This process--called biomimetics, biomimicry, or bionics--is the crossroads where nature and engineering meet.

Velcro is perhaps the best example of biomimetics. In 1948 a Swiss scientist, George de Mestral, removed a bur stuck to his dog's fur and studied it under a microscope. Impressed by the stickiness of the bur's hooks he copied the design, engineering a two-piece fastener. One piece has stiff hooks like that of the prickly seedcase, while the other has soft loops that allow the hooks to adhere. De Mestral named his invention Velcro--a combination of the words "velour" and "crochet." (NatGeoMagazine) See more great examples of Biomimetics in action courtesy of Mother Nature Network!