Tag: maps

3

From Absaroka to Yazoo: The 125 United States That Could've Been

I allowed my own mind to wander and I came up with the beginnings of a historical geography narrative for the United States of my own, drawing on each of these sources. How could I spell this out? Well, I'm no novelist, because I just really don't have the imagination or skills necessary to put together a story in that format. However, I can make maps here and there, and I firmly believe that maps can do a pretty good job telling a story. What did I end up with? My own alternate history U.S. map of 125 states Read more

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Push & Pull Factors Assignment, Spring 2011

Every semester, I give students a basic assignments asking them to "Rate the States." After they do that, we work through some simple analyses as a bridge into discussing push and pull factors. Here are the results from my Spring 2011 courses at the University of Akron. Read more

1

Mapping (Geo-)Autobiography: My Mental Map of the World

At the beginning of every semester, I use a mental mapping assignment in World Geography to stress to the students that memorizing maps isn't what geography is all about. But, up until now, I'd never tried it myself. So, last night, I sat down for a few minutes and drew a map. What I came up with was, well, pretty messy and it took up parts of four sheets, but I scanned it and used Photoshop to put it together and... voila! Read more

6

Mapping (Geo-)Autobiography: Travel

A lot of travelers -- and especially geographers -- like to keep track of numbers of places they've been.... countries, states, continents, capitals, everything. It's a nice way to reflect upon past experiences, and yes, of course, brag to one's friends about those travels. A couple of my colleagues, Nick Wise and Emily Fekete, produced what they called "County Life Maps" earlier this year, highlighting the counties they had visited in the United States, and urged me to do the same. I was more than willing to oblige Read more

4

Geographic Literacy: Our Job Isn't Finished

Of course, we all know that maps are not the end-all, be-all of geography; far from it, maps are only a small part of what geographers do.  At the same time, though, maps are useful tools that are crucial, especially to beginning students, in helping represent the world and provide a basis for understanding the more interesting aspects of our field.  With all of this in mind, I'm bringing forth an activity that I do on the first day of every World Regional Geography course I teach.  After we go over the syllabus, I hand each student a blank piece of Hammermill copy paper and give them the following instructions: Draw a map of the world, label what's important. Here are the results. Read more

0

The United States of Pop Music

Using album sales to approximate a "popular" act to represent each of the 50 states, plus DC and Puerto Rico. Read more

14

Impressionist Geography: 50 States, 50 Words

I am purposely not providing any further explanation to the words as they are chosen.  Why?  Because if you look at this map, even if you don't know me and don't know a thing about me, you're going to see these words and begin connecting the dots. You're going to have your own perception of why I chose the words I chose, and you're going to come up with other possibilities for your own map. It's inevitable, because maps draw us in, and make us think.  You're going to know me a little better than you did before, and whatever ideas you scratch from this map about me will be absolutely 100% true; "knowing" someone is only a compilation of impressions and perceptions about that person, because we can never truly be in their heads or walk in their shoes. Read more

22

50 States, 50 Movies

A piece was published on the Huffington Post today, identifying every state of the U.S. by one movie. The selection criteria isn't necessarily clear on the HuffPo.... not much is said about what kind of thinking was behind these selections.  It appears that most of these movies have stories based in the states listed, which is a good idea. Now, beyond the fact that the cartography of this map is sooooooooo incredibly terrible (gross, gross, gross!), I do think they could have come up with some better selections for some of these states.  Okay, fine, many of these states.  Yeah, I'm sitting here, debating an issue of taste.  So?   My proposed changes, or at least suggestions for alternatives Read more

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Regions of the Continental United States (According to... Me)

My friend and colleague, Emily Fekete, who recently moved on to greener pastures and new opportunities in the geography PhD program at the University of Kansas, posted an entry trying to establish her mental map of regions of the United States.  I thought it was a good idea, and since I don't have too many of those on my own lately, I figured I might as well replicate her efforts and provide my own map of regions so that we could compare our different thoughts, ideas and experiences. Perhaps this will filter through the community of geography blogs and we'll get a whole bunch of mental regions floating around. Maybe not, but..... Read more