| It’s Friday! Well, it is for me right now this afternoon in Santa Barbara, but for almost half of the planet, it’s already Saturday. As midnight sweeps around the world, a new day comes into being, and the process starts as midnight crosses an entirely arbitrary line in the Pacific – the International Date Line. Unlike 0 degrees, the line of longitude that goes through Greenwich, England, the Date Line is a very crooked boundary indeed. More or less directly opposite the Prime Meridian, it bends this way and that in order to allow various island nations and island groups to be unified on the day of the week they’re observing. There are no World Government rules about the placement of the International Date Line. If an island nation feels sufficiently strongly for reasons of trade or location to redefine the line in relation to their position, they can do it autonomously. Of course it’s not a small decision, so it doesn’t happen often or on a whim. One of the more unusual changes came at the end of the 20th century when the island group nation of Kiribati bent the line far to the east so that its easternmost island outpost would be the first to see the sun rise on the new century. Not long ago, Samoa decided to push the line to its east in order to share the same working day as Australia and New Zealand, their biggest trading partners. Tokelau also went along with them to the new day, and in the process each lost December 30, 2011. History will record that nothing whatosever happened on those islands on that day because for them, it never existed. |
Archive for the 'Education' Category
27
Feb
15
MIDNIGHT CROSSES
This from our friends at the National Council for Social Studies. Please take a moment to read and act! It is critical that we raise every voice to ensure that critical funding is available for our schools. Many recent reports have shown the increased relevance and importance of Social Studies (and Geography) to the success of our children as they develop the skills that will make them successful and productive adults. Maps.com is committed to not only creating products and services that are an essential part of our children’s education, but also to promoting and advocating for the resources that our schools need.
Subject: URGENT – Funding for Social Studies — Civic Learning & History
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learn about how else you can help at the NCSS Advocacy page.
See also the following links for more about the increasing importance of geography to our collective future:
http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-geography-main-20130407,0,2690536,full.story
http://blog.telemapics.com/?p=411
Geography Bee season is upon us, and this year Maps.com was lucky enough to take part at grass roots.
Instead of just writing about maps, geo-politics and an increasingly bizarre group of place-shaped kitchen products we elected to use our time more effectively by assisting in the early rounds of the National Geographic Geography Bee at our local school, Goleta Valley Junior High.
The results were inspirational. This is the second Geo Bee we have been involved with locally in recent weeks and once again it was a delight to see kids of school age up for geography.
You can read about it here at our Maps101 blog.
Islands off Nicaragua ruled to belong to Columbia
05
Nov
12
Hurricanes Tracking Hurricanes
If you have ever wondered if or why hurricanes follow a similar pattern from one to the next, check out this article on the Maps.com blog posted from the Geography in the News archives called Hurricanes Tracking Hurricanes. Click here to learn more.
Our Thursday topic in our series of Hurricanes Week features is another great Geography in the News article from our archives called Is No Place Safe From Hurricanes, from Dr. Neal Lineback. The information is as relevant today as it was when it was first published. Read on.
With coastal development booming along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, we need to be reminded that hardly any coastal location in this region is safe from hurricanes. However, even hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma aren’t likely to deter public interest in coastal property ownership and development.
The accompanying map is a modified version of a highly detailed map published on the Web by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, N.C. The NCDC map shows all of the 96 U.S. hurricane landfalls between 1950 and 2004 by name, date and Saffir-Simpson Category (1-5). The accompanying map generalizes much of the data and adds the five 2005 landfalls as of October 12, bringing the total to 101.
Hurricane landfalls are the locations where the eye of a hurricane crosses a coastline from the water. Generally, the landfall site sustains the most direct damage from the eye of a hurricane, but the right side of the eye’s landfall is where wind and water tend to create the greatest damage from the storm’s counterclockwise rotating winds. Not only are these winds unimpeded as they flow onto the land from water, but they also tend to push water onto the land in a storm surge.
The Saffir-Simpson classification system has been adopted by climatologists and meteorologists to provide five categories of hurricanes’ sustained winds. Category 1 is a fairly weak hurricane with sustained winds of 73-95 mph; Category 2 has winds of 96-110; Category 3 has 111-130; Category 4 has 131-155; and Category 5 hurricanes have sustained winds over 155 mph. Categories 4 and 5 storms cause extensive structural failures of roofs and walls and flooding of at least first levels of coastal buildings.
North America’s hurricane season begins each year on June 1 and ends on November 30. According to NOAA, the Atlantic basin, including the Gulf, has had an average of six hurricanes per year and approximately five hurricanes strike the United States’ coastline between Texas and Maine over each three-year period. There were no hurricane landfalls in the region during the 2000 and 2001 hurricane seasons.
The 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1990s were the most active hurricane decades in the Atlantic basin since the documentation began in the 1850s, but the current decade is proving be most active. Over the past 155 years, there was an average of 2.2 hurricanes per year in the Atlantic basin, or 22 per decade. Twelve decades had fewer than the average. The 1950s had 39 hurricanes, 1960s had 28 and the 1990s had 25 hurricanes. During the first five years of the 2000s decade, however, there have been at least 24 hurricanes and by October 12 of the 2005 hurricane season there had been 11 hurricanes in the basin, making this one of the two most active hurricane years on record.
The geographic pattern of U.S. hurricane landfalls is interesting in that there are some clusters and some parts of coastlines relatively free of landfalls. Two clusters are evident in North and South Carolina’s exposed coastlines. Florida’s southeast coast stretching from Cape Canaveral to Key West has a distinctive cluster. Landfalls also are clustered from Florida’s western panhandle nearly continuously to south Texas. Long Island, New York, and coastal New England are sometimes exposed to hurricanes traveling northward along the East Coast.
Between 1950 and 2005, Florida had the most numerous landfalls at 28, but it also has the longest coastline of any of the East Coast states and it sustained the most landfalls by Category 4 and 5 storms (4). Eighteen landfalls occurred in North Carolina, including Ophelia in 2005, where the Outer Banks are most susceptible. Because these low islands protrude into the Atlantic and have major bodies of water on both sides, overwash of these exposed islands from both sides can occur even with minor storms.
Gaps between clusters of hurricane landfalls also are interesting. Florida’s west coast has had relatively few landfalls, except the recent one by Hurricane Wilma and only five others. But perhaps the most interesting gaps are found on Florida’s northeast coast and nearly along Georgia’s entire coastline. Accounting for this gap may be the westward indentation of the coast, similar to the coastlines of Virginia, Delaware and New Jersey.
Geographic patterns of hurricane landfalls are of extreme interest to insurance companies, among many others interested in coastal development. Is there really any coastal location totally safe from hurricane landfalls? Maybe not. But a few places are certainly more vulnerable than others.
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On the topic of Hurricanes this week, here is another great Geography in the News article from our archives called Hurricanes and the Caribbean from Dr. Neal Lineback, reposted from the team at the Maps101 blog:
The 2008 hurricane season has arrived. The tropical vacation destinations known as the Antilles are particularly vulnerable to these tropical storms and often bear the brunt of hurricanes that enter the Caribbean Sea.
The Caribbean islands contain some of the Western Hemisphere’s most expensive vacation destinations. The region also has some of the world’s worst poverty. Hurricanes are a threat to all who live and vacation there from June through December.
The Caribbean region consists of the islands and mainland surrounding the Caribbean geologic plate and the Caribbean Sea. This is one of the earth’s most active tectonic and volcanic regions. It formed more than 7,000 islands and islets in the Caribbean archipelago arc known as the Greater and Lesser Antilles.
Hurricanes and the Caribbean
The Greater Antilles include Cuba, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Jamaica and Puerto Rico on the northern margins of the Caribbean. The Lesser Antilles consist of the smaller islands located along the eastern side of the Caribbean Sea and are further divided into the Windward and Leeward Islands.
The topography of the islands varies greatly, from volcanic peaks on St. Kitts and Montserrat to relatively flat terrain on Aruba. There are 13 sovereign states, 12 dependent territories and two overseas departments (similar to states) in the Antilles.
All of the Antilles are tropical, situated at latitudes where the trade winds blow almost continuously from the northeast, bringing warm, moist air to the windward sides of the islands. Mountainous terrain regularly experiences high rainfall amounts, providing fresh water and resulting in tropical rainforests growing on steep windward slopes.
The name Caribbean derives from the Amerindian ethnic group called Caribs that occupied the Lesser Antilles and parts of the coastal mainland when the Europeans first arrived in 1492. The initial European explorers tried to force the Caribs to work in fields and mines. However, the original islanders were too independent and the majority of population was wiped out as European settlers seized their islands and brought African slaves to provide labor and grow sugarcane.
The Spanish were the first Europeans to conquer and settle the Antilles. The French and British alternatively fought for control of the land. Even the Netherlands and United States vied for some of the islands. Today, the islands’ cultures are a polyglot of different languages, diets, house types, political systems, economies, laws and money.
Hurricanes can bring exceedingly high precipitation, high winds and storm surges anywhere around the Caribbean region, particularly to Antilles. Large resort properties may sustain massive damage from a direct hurricane hit. Most islanders’ houses, however, are more fragile and can’t withstand hurricane-force winds.
Nearly all of the Caribbean islands have hurricane evacuation plans and shelters. Tourists are evacuated and local residents, particularly those from coastal villages, are moved to reinforced hurricane shelters. Schools and public buildings serve as shelters and buildings designed specifically for hurricane events are being constructed.
Most tropical storms that are or are destined to become hurricanes enter the Caribbean Sea from the northeast, riding in on the northeast trade winds. Consequently, the northeast sides of the islands are the first to experience the damaging effects.
One example is Hurricane Georges, which pummeled St. Kitts and Nevis in 1998. Georges was one of the strongest hurricanes ever to strike St. Kitts. It damaged 85 percent of the local structures and totally destroyed 30 percent. Half of the island’s population of more than 30,000 was without shelter, food or water. Georges made more landfalls than any other hurricane in recent times: Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba and the United States (twice).
With the hurricane season here, Caribbean islanders will keep a wary eye to the northeast. Nobody wants another Hurricane Georges.
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For weekly Geography in the News analysis and thousands of maps, activities, lesson plans, videos and more register for a free trial on maps101.com.
Cross posting this from our friends at Green Comma.
The first of the 2012 US Presidential Debates start today, Wednesday, October 3, 2012. They are historic for two reasons:
- These elections will determine the course of the US economy, its role in world affairs, how social services are made available to the citizenry, and what the role of government should be in United States of the 21st century.
- These debates will be broadcast on more platforms and will be accessible to more people around the globe than at any time in world history.
How about a little debate history:
- The first senatorial debate was between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in 1858, without a moderator and lasted for over three hours.
- The first radio broadcast of a Presidential debate was in 1948 between Thomas Dewey and Harold Stassen.
- In 1960, the Nixon-Kennedy debate went into the history books not only as the first televised Presidential debate but also for what it revealed about a candidate’s physical presence in front of a camera that got closer to the candidate, literally, than the majority of the voters.
Today, we provide a few fact-checking tools for you to use as you follow the debates. This ability to monitor and access information in real-time is part of the social media world we live in.
Be informed. Vote smart.
We also we provide you with two links to the debates themselves and to an app that provides you, your children and your students with information for the entire election process.
How to Watch Presidential Debates on Your Mobile
Courtesy of Green Comma 39 Whitman Street Somerville, MA 02144-1615 http://twitter.com/greencomma
and of course, check out the election resources on Maps101. Your trusted source for classroom resources.
Maps101 is a cross-curricular, online resource that makes K-12 learning engaging and fun.
23
May
12
Tablet Wars: The OS Battle
Ever since the iPad burst onto the scene, tablets have been the darlings of consumers and educators alike, with hundreds of millions of units sold. But is the US market indicative of the Worldwide trend in mobile platform adoption?
This past week on the NPR/KQED MindShift education blog, Frank Catalano examines the trends in the global market and finds that while Apple has a majority of the market share in tablet adoption by both consumers and educators in the US, it is Google’s Android that is leading the way with multiple sub-$150 devices being created in several countries and large scale adoption on a national level. Read Frank’s post here: “Which device will win the tablet battle?”
The question for publishers and content developers then becomes how to create content and curriculum as platform-agnostic as possible in order to capitalize on the adoption of as many of these devices as possible worldwide. At the moment, there are no easy answers, especially when publishers have to reach schools that are on the front lines in adopting the newest technology as well as those that lag behind, having to make do with years-old hardware and software.
At Maps.com, we are creating content and applications both specific to iOS and Android operating systems as well as cross-platform applications – primarily with HTML5. For instance, in our Maps101 Web service, we have long had a collection of hundreds of outline maps and a Flash-based MapKit drawing tool for users to create and modify their own maps. This month we released a new tool called MapSketch that adds to all of our maps an HTML5-based drawing tool that is cross-platform compatible. MapSketch will also be made available to add the same drawing tools to third party sites and applications such as Interactive White Board Activities. Contact us to find out how.
Maps.com is celebrating with Educational Publisher McGraw-Hill after they scooped a CODiE award for “Best K-12 Course or Learning Management Solution”
“Networks: A social studies learning system” is a complete Social Studies resource incorporating print and digital solutions. The system is designed to bring abstract concepts to life through hands-on, interactive activities such as interactive maps and games, graphic organizers and engaging multimedia.
US History – Grades 6-8: McGraw-Hill Networks
The publisher included comprehensive teacher resources, worksheets, training videos, lesson plans and assessment tools.
Over 600 maps were produced for the project by Maps.com Cartographers, while the company’s programming team developed a presentation platform for the digital content that included timeline animations, voice narration and editing tools for a truly interactive classroom experience.
“The success of this project was the result of a huge effort by the McGraw-Hill team and we congratulate them on this significant recognition.” Revealed Bennett Moe, who coordinated the digital and cartographic elements delivered by Maps.com. “We are proud to have played a key role in such a high profile and challenging project and delivered exactly what was required.”
The CODiE awards are annually presented by the Software and Information Industry Association – the principal trade association for the software and digital content industries. Initial reviews are carried out by tech-savvy educators, with a shortlist of 128 finalists reviewed by a panel of SIIA members.
Maps.com has more than 20 years of experience in the mapping industry and serves a variety of markets including education and news media. They have an in house development team producing location based applications including online store locators and smart phone apps and ebooks. Maps.com is also home to the world’s biggest map and map related online retail store which receives almost 1 million visitors each month.
Related articles
- McGraw-Hill School Education’s Proven Digital Solutions Selected as Finalists for 2012 CODiE Awards (prnewswire.com)
- McGraw-Hill Networks press release – http://mheducation.com/releases/20120508.shtml
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