How do you know what you don’t know? - Issue #17

All Geographers

EarthTime enables users to interact with visualizations of the Earth's transformation over time. Combining huge data sets with decades of images captured by NASA and European Space Agency satellites, EarthTime brings to life patterns of natural change and human impact.

While listening to Lee Howell of the Villars Institute (more about this in the future, hopefully), at the recent Swiss IB Geography Network meeting, we were introduced to EarthTime.

Users of EarthTime can view compelling animations accompanied by fact-based narratives from international experts. Drawing upon EarthTime's vast data library, the stories ... are curated in honor of different global events and themes.

'Women and Economic Growth', 'The Good & Bad of Globalisation', 'Sahel in Peril: The Big Picture',and 'Surface Water' are just a few of the amazing resources available on the site. Check it out and get some of these 'stories' embedded into your teaching and learning.

IB DP Geographers

Dive into how a structure that’s designed to protect us from floods, may actually be making them worse. High levees come at a high cost, often pushing water into communities that can’t afford the same protection. To demonstrate, we built a giant, scientific model of a river with levees — complete with adorable tiny houses.

Freshwater - Flood mitigation, including structural measures (dams, afforestation, channel modification and levee strengthening) and planning (personal insurance and flood preparation, and flood warning technology) 

It is worth joining the 10.6 million people that already subscribe to the Vox YouTube channel. There are some useful videos with content that lends itself to use with DP Geography classes. Here are just a few examples →

• Freshwater → How "levee wars" are making floods worse

• Geography and ToK → Why all world maps are wrong

• Unit 4 - Superpowers → How America became a superpower

• Unit 4 - Communication → How Does the Internet Work?

Updates

Student checklists for those using geographyalltheway.com as part of their studies.

DP1 exams started here on Monday, at the school where I teach. To help the students ensure they have all the necessary notes, etc, I have created some quick checklists. The students seem to have found them useful. You will find them for Units 3, 4, and 5 on the associated revision pages of geographyalltheway.com.

Random

As easy to use as a word document or bulleted list, and as powerful for finding, collecting, and connecting related ideas as a graph database. Collaborate with others in real time, or store all your data locally.

A note-taking tool for networked thought

I wanted a note taking app that ran online as well as having Mac and iOS apps. I wanted the app to make the process of building links between projects and ideas easier. I even wanted it to remind me when I had had that idea before. Roam Research is not cheap but it is brilliant. It does what I wanted in a note taking app, and I use it everyday to help me keep all the plates spinning as they should.