Hunger Map from the World Food Programme

 

 I've featured this before, but it's worth another look.

🌎 Geography teachers here is a brilliant map https://t.co/VL1sbJ3Ytb by @WFP it shows food consumption, conflicts and natural hazards live that you can use in your classrooms.

— Charlie Jordan (@MINIJ0RDY) September 12, 2023

A range of data which is dramatically presented and makes a vivid impression.

Mapping the Great Kanto Earthquake

 

Over the years, I've had a great many links suggested by Keir Clarke's Google Maps Mania (now Maps Mania).

Yesterday saw the centenary of the Great Kanto Earthquake which led to fires which devastated the wooden buildings of Tokyo at the time. The Nikkei newspaper created a map which can be read in English (or Japanese).

Japanese newspaper Nikkei has marked the 100th anniversary of the Great Kantō earthquake with a mapped reconstruction of the resulting fires which destroyed nearly half of Tokyo.https://t.co/S4LkiKLFXb pic.twitter.com/DsYmH2lqLo

— gmapsmania mapstodon.space/@mapsmania (@gmapsmania) September 2, 2023

 

Wildfire Map using ESRI Data

A new map, using data from ESRI's Living Atlas. Zoom into an area to see what Wildfires are active.

Thanks to Addy Pope for the tipoff.

Very informative Wildfire Aware dashboard from the @LivingAtlas team that brings home the scale of this seasons fires - https://t.co/a6cJVG5hES #wildfire pic.twitter.com/t2ZCaPVjAa

— Addy Pope (@GIS4HE) August 18, 2023

The 22 data layers used in this application can be found in ArcGIS Living Atlas:

Environmental Protection Agency – Ecoregions and Air Quality Current and Tomorrow
National Aeronautics and Space Administration – MODIS and VIIRS
National Weather Service – Temperature Forecast, Wind Speed, Weather Watches and Warnings
US Department of Agriculture – Drought Monitor
US Census – Census 2020 Redistricting Blocks and American Community Survey
USDA Forest Service – Wildfire Burned Areas, Wildfire Hazard Potential, Forest Type Groups, and Forest Carbon Pools
US Fish and Wildlife Service – Critical Habitat
US Geological Survey – National Land Cover Database and Protected Areas Database
Integrated Reporting of Wildland-Fire Information (IRWIN) – Wildfire Points
National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) – Wildfire Perimeters
Nature Serve – Imperiled Species
Esri – 2023 Demographics and World Ecological Landforms

Wartime imagery released

 

Historic England has opened up an archive of aerial photography from the Second World War. 

There are quite a lot of images of Norfolk as there were a lot of airfields operating at the time, with personnel from a range of countries. There were several airfields within five miles of where I live now, and there is a particular curve in the road near Beeston where I can imagine that the landscape is absolutely unchanged since the 1940s and would be recognisable by anyone from back then. It also reminds me of the temporal connections made in Powell and Pressburger's 'A Canterbury Tale'.

A collection of Second World War aerial photography has been made accessible to the public for the first time. 📷

The photographs were taken by the United States Army Air Forces Photographic Reconnaissance units in England in 1943 and 1944.

See more. ➡️ https://t.co/ziBhpkjQFa pic.twitter.com/VEX8KeompG

— Historic England (@HistoricEngland) August 16, 2023

There is also a link to a whole generation of GA Presidents of the 1940s-1960s, who worked in aerial reconnaisance and image interpretation during the Second World War.

Check out the relevant posts on this link, with thanks to Brendan Conway for additional research. This is an area that deserves a little more attention I think.

Neighbourhood Colors

 

Another tipoff from the excellent Google Maps Mania.

How is land used in your neighborhood?

Neighborhood Colors works out the percentage of local land zoned for residential, business and recreational use. It even allows you to print out a postcard visualization of the results.https://t.co/wyWuXhRuin pic.twitter.com/K6feGbcG6i

— gmapsmania mapstodon.space/@mapsmania (@gmapsmania) August 14, 2023

It works for Berlin only... and creates a postcard with proportional shaded areas showing land use in your chosen neighbourhood.

GI Pedagogy

I previously posted about my regret at the ending of the UK's involvement with the ERASMUS+ programme following our withdrawal from the EU. Whenever I've met and worked with European friends and colleagues since then, they have expressed their sadness and bafflement at that decision. We can only hope that it might be reversed at some point.

The GI Pedagogy project was my 'final' involvement and last week we got the final assessment back from the British Council with a VERY GOOD assessment, which had improved on the original project bid - which is always good to see, and which commented on the quality of the outputs and support for teachers.

If you are thinking of increasing your use of GIS in the classroom please check out our website for the resources that we created as part of the project. The innovative aspect of our work is the use of Rosenshine's Principles to help inform the teaching with GIS.

These include:

- Our lesson template.

- Research reports on best practice when teaching with GIS. I contributed to all of these, but was particularly involved in the creation of the TOOLKIT. I'm very pleased with how that turned out.

- Check out our MOOC - free access, and full of useful videos and other resources

- A StoryMap of outcomes from people who have used our model.

Hoodmaps.com

 

A cross posting from my Fieldnotes from Iceland blog. Check out the almost 500 posts on Iceland here...

This map site provides visual summaries of the neighbourhood demographics of a number of cities around the world. It's not meant to be entirely serious, but is worth taking a look at.

Here's the result for Sheffield.

Mapmaker - launched in Beta

 MapMaker was launched at the ESRI User Conference earlier in the week.

As part of a great new collaboration with with National Geographic Society we are launching a new, free, mapping solution for schools, MapMaker 3.0 (beta). 2D, 3D, curated content, innovative tools, designed for schools. Give is a try at https://t.co/6IStrdoCcR #geographyteacher pic.twitter.com/Rz1vp8cfDF

— Jason Sawle (@GIS4Schools) July 9, 2023

Back in 2010-12 I travelled the country leading GIS sessions with Jason Sawle, using an ESRI product called Digital Worlds.  We visited cities up and down the country at the time. Jason is now Global Schools Manager at ESRI, and was involved in the launch of MapMaker.

The new National Geographic MapMaker has some unique features for teaching. Use the weather simulation tool in 3D to aide understanding and reduce cognitive load for flooding case studies. Try it for yourself at https://t.co/92wRmaZknk#EsriUC2023 #geographyteacher pic.twitter.com/7G0d4zyf5J

— Jason Sawle (@GIS4Schools) July 11, 2023

Try the tool here:

This might be the tool that you find the most useful from the various ESRI options.

Streets GL

You can follow planes in real-time and in 3D at any airport in the world on this interactive map.https://t.co/AqLcbE2xS1 pic.twitter.com/hsxY4ERqCk

— gmapsmania mapstodon.space/@mapsmania (@gmapsmania) May 17, 2023

Thanks to Keir and colleagues for the tipoff to this useful resource.

Evening falls over King's Ely.

 

Pathways to Ancient Britain - R4 and Virtual Tour

Radio 4's 'Costing the Earth' series broadcast a programme on the 18th of April called 'Losing our History'. It featured the Norfolk Coast and the village of Happisburgh. 

There are over 400 episodes available.

A recent issue of the programme explored the impact of erosion on historical remains.

For more on this, visit the Pathways to Ancient Britain (PAB) virtual tour of the area around Happisburgh. There are some particularly important archaeological sites on the coast.

This is developed using Google Earth.

GIS - a new Tutor2U blog series

 GIS is a growth area, but one which many teachers are still unsure about.

I worked with Brendan Conway on the GI Pedagogy project, which has now concluded. Our resources are available on the hub.

Brendan has also teamed up with Tutor2U to produce a series of posts about GIS.

The first two are now up. A link to the first is here:

First in a series of blogposts about teaching with GIS, from our in-house expert @mildthing99 who is an advocate of making GIS 'part of furniture' in your classroom #everydayGIS https://t.co/wp2oSkmt7z

— tutor2u Geography (@tutor2uGeog) April 25, 2023

& the second is here:

Good afternoon!
We have added the latest in a series of blogs about GIS to the website today - written by @mildthing99 (who has an incredible amount of knowledge with GIS!)... @tutor2uGeog @tutor2u #geographyteacher https://t.co/3nDvs74ofA

— woollyvix (@woollyvix) May 11, 2023

How well do you know your area?

 

Details from the Census 2021 have been turned into quizzes by the team from ONS who have frequently created and shared interactive comment.

How well do you know your area?

There is a wide range of questions here to choose from.

How well do you know your local area?

We’ve added some more questions to our interactive #Census 2021 quiz 🗺️❓

Try to guess things like:

🏠 most common number of bedrooms
🩺 how people reported their health
🎓 qualification levels

➡️ https://t.co/lnm0wnbH61 pic.twitter.com/mmbNePjqcK

— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) April 3, 2023

Give it a go. It's embedded below: 

Using the new 2021 Census mapping - a student guide

Thanks to Ahmad Barclay for the heads-up (once again) on ONS data and map releases from the Census 2021.

📈Big new data release today on #CensusMaps!📉
See how your area has changed over the past 10 years, right down to a neighbourhood levelhttps://t.co/mIj0ahCHBd
1/3 pic.twitter.com/RiBEdwmq9E

— Ahmad Barclay (@bothness) March 7, 2023

These maps are going to be very helpful for a lot of teachers and students. 

I put a quick guide together which you are welcome to use / download / distribute: 

Census data and maps are shared under an Open Government License.

GI Pedagogy MOOC - check it out.

 

We are now coming to the final stage of the GI Pedagogy project.

The target audience is wide and you may be part of it...

The project’s outputs and events are aimed specifically at supporting educators (Horizontal Priority: Supporting Educators). 

This training will help teachers embed GIS within their curriculum. 

It will support them to feel confident in teaching GIS as a fundamental tool for modern geography, not as a superficial add-on to existing methods.

The training takes the form of a MOOC: an online course basically, with resources, videos and presentations.

Feel free to check it out.

Also feel free to follow us on Twitter @GIPedagogy.