Common Geographic Misconceptions

 

The National Geographic has a nice article online titled, "Why Your Mental Map Of The World Is (Probably) Wrong".  According to their article, "These are some of the most common geographic misconceptions that are both surprising and surprisingly hard to correct."    For example, "Most of Africa is north of the equator, though on many mental maps it is mostly in the southern hemisphere directly across the Atlantic from South America."  To see the article click here.

Glen Weibe suggests asking these questions:
Based on your mental (or actual) map of the world, answer a few simple questions:
How much of South America is east of Miami, Florida?
How much of Africa is north of the equator?
Which city is further north – Paris, France or Montreal, Canada?
Venice, Italy is located at the same latitude of what major American city?
Which is bigger? The lower 48 United States or Brazil?

Glen suggests having your students use "The True Size Of" website for the last question.  I have blogged about this map website in March of 2017.  To see that post click here.

He also suggests Bouncy Maps which  "connect locations with data. Maps become bigger or smaller to show differences in the data."  To see Bouncy Maps, click here.

Global Poverty

Through the use of storytelling, videos, and interactive maps, ESRI  takes a look at one method of measuring global poverty.  From their site, "This measure, called the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), addresses poverty through an integrative approach."

According to Maps Mania, "The Global Poverty Map provides a number of global views of poverty based on the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). The map provides an overview of poverty around the world based on the 2014 Global MPI findings, with each country shaded on the map based on each country's MPI score.

The map also includes a map view based on the three main dimensions of the Index, health, education, and living standards. For this layer of the map countries are colored to show the predominant dimension of poverty in each country."

To see the website click here.

ESRI StoryMaps for World Geography

If you are teaching a World Geography course this site might be of some interest to you.  From their website, "this ESRI StoryMap is designed for geography students and teachers to get the most these sites. The various scoops and posts that I share represent the best news, articles, videos and other resources that I have found to be used in classes to act as an online textbook."  

All you have to do is cursor around the map to a country of interest.  Click on the circle with the initials of that country.  A box will then open up.  click on that box and you will get a scoopit page with geography articles from that country.  Click here to see it.

Human Geography

ESRI has produced Geoinquiries for Human Geography, Earth Science and US History.  "Geoinquiries are designed to be fast and easy-to-use instructional resources that incorporate advance web mapping technology."  To see the website click here.