|
2013 -
2012 - 2011 - 2010 - 2009 - 2008 - 2007 - 2006 - 2005 - 2004 - 2003 - 2002 - 2001 - 2000 - 1999 - 1998 - 1997 - 1996
Note: links (over 500) are not maintained and may not work.
6 to 13 January, 2007
Earth From
Space
An online exhibition from the Smithsonian that
reflects a traveling exhibition. The site includes remarkable imagery,
lesson plans, and a variety of educational and interactive website links.
13 to 20 January, 2007
Google Transit
Still in development, but quite wonderful, is this
new offering from Google. For those communities that have submitted their
transit data, you can create your own transit trip, complete with
itineraries and maps. As of mid-December, the list included Burbank and
Orange County in California, Tampa, FL, Honolulu, HI, Eugene and Portland,
OR, Pittsburgh, PA, and Seattle, WA. If you'd like to see your own
community listed, direct the transit authorities to this
website .
21 to 28 January, 2007
Maps
of Africa
A site at the Northwestern University Library, a
collection of over 100 maps of Africa, dating from 1530 to the early 20th
century; part of the collection of the Herskovitz Library.
28 January to 4 February, 2007
Historic
Pittsburgh
A cooperative collection of local maps, historic
material, and other items from the archives of University of Pittsburgh's
library, as well as the Heinz History Center, Carnegie Museum of Art, and
the Chatham Collee archives. Lots of content here, including a useful page
"For Teachers".
4 to 11 February, 2007
The
Perfect Fake
A newly-published thriller by Barbara Parker; the
main character, Tom Fairchild, has to create a perfect, undetectable
duplicate of an antique map -- a forgery or not. Much of the action takes
place in an antique map store in Florida, or other locations around Miami,
but Tom also has to research the map in England and Italy -- and has to be
smuggled out, since he is on parole in Florida. Read the reviews on this
Amazon page.
11 to 18 February, 2007
Daylight
Saving Time
This is one of many sites that tries to break down
the utter confusion that is going to result from the US changing its
clocks to Daylight Saving Time on March 11 this year, instead of the end
of March (with the rest of the world). The only country that is following
along with the US is Canada, again not because they want to, but because
of the cost in confusion and dismay if they don't. Other useful links
include The
US Naval Observatory, or Microsoft's
Page on products affected by the change in DST, or The
National Atlas article on DST.
18 to 25 February, 2007
World Political/Physical Maps
Combined with Satellite Imagery
From the Department of Geography and Geology at
Mansfield University in Pennsylvania, some very powerful stuff here.
Take a look at a country's political map, and directly above it on the
same page, a satellite image at the same size and scale. Represented here
are 51 African countries, 49 in Asia, 38 in Europe, 13 in South American,
all 50 US states, and a number of other countries and entities. A
beautiful and usable and fascinating site.
25 February to 4 March, 2007
U.S. Political/Physical Maps
Combined with Satellite Imagery
From the Department of Geography and Geology at
Mansfield University in Pennsylvania, a "US Map Collection". Select a
state from the interactive map, and what you get are several useful maps
on one page -- shaded relief (with a link to a satellite image),
elevation, rivers and lakes, county maps showing just counties or counties
and county seats, and a highway map. A vast and worthwhile archive.
4 to 11 March, 2007
Holy Land Maps
A collection of maps, dating from 1462 to the
early 1900's, showing views of Israel and the Holy Land. This site has
over 1000 maps, from the Eran Laor Cartographic Collection at the Jewish
National And University Library. You can search by mapmaker, date, or
location mapped; there is also a very rich page of links to other map
collections.
11 to 18 March, 2007
The Broer Map Library
A substantial collection of maps. From their own
"about is" page: "The Broer Map Library is an organization aimed at
providing libraries and other organizations access to a large online map
collection. We understand that unless you are a large public library or
university that you do not have the staff, space or financial resources to
have a large map collection. By working collectivly, we hope to provide
you with such access. The Library was founded in 2002 by David Broer, an
avid map collector and advocate for equal access to resources for people
living outside of major cities and universities."
18 to 25 March, 2007
Worldmapper
From the University of Sheffield's Social and
Spatial Inequalities Research Group, a very interesting collection of
cartograms -- maps in which land areas are sized according to the
particular subject of the map. There are reference maps, such as Total
Population, which has a hugely enlarged Asia, or Wealth, in which Europe
and North America predominate. Worth exploring, this site offers a wide
range of categories, from Goods and Services to Education, Disease,
Pollution, and Exploitation.
25 March to 1 April, 2007
Gallery
of Subway Maps
A segment of the Amadeus flight reservation
system's website, this extensive gallery of subway maps covers Europe (70
subway systems), the Americas (32), Australia (2), Africa (2), and "Asia
and the Middle East" (34). The maps are small, but can be saved and
printed as pdf or Word documents. The website makes reference to urbanrail.net, which may be the
source of many of the Amadeus maps.
1 to 8 April, 2007
International Polar Year
Maps
From the University of Alberta, this is the
Canadian International Polar Year Map Server, which maps the research
stations, projects, and other relevant information. Read about the
International Polar Year at ipy.org.
8 to 15 April, 2007
Mapping for
the Visually Impaired
This portal, from Natural Resources Canada, aims
to make geo-spatial data accessible. The site provides tactile maps for
education, mobility training maps, maps to help those with visual
impairments to visit travel destinations, and other maps and methods of
delivery. Be sure to review the research section; some exciting new
developments there.
15 to 22 April, 2007
Baghdad: Mapping the violence
From the BBC, an interactive map that allows
views of civilian casualties in Baghdad over time. Monthly figures for
civilian casualties are from Iraq Body Count which uses at least two media
reports as the source for each death. BBC uses a mean number of IBC's
minimum and maximum figures for each month. Attacks resulting in more than
10 dead are located as accurately as possible from reports since 2003.
Where an exact location is not possible, in areas such as Sadr City, the
marker has been placed within the district. If you click on the link, you
will be taken away from the map to the BBC News website story. Casualty
figures in the story are as reported at the time and may differ from the
link. Ethnic divisions in Baghdad are also shown, using information from
the International Medical Corps.
22 to 29 April, 2007
G.Projector
From NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, a
wonderful little program, called "Global Map Projector", but known as
G.Projector. G.Projector is a Java application which allows you to explore
a large collection of global map projections, transforming any map
projection (one is included) into another projection. A very good tool
for visualizing the distortions of shape and size inherent in every map
projection. Note that this is not a WEB application -- you'll need to
download it to your computer, and you'll need a recent version of Java
installed as well -- but all the items you need to install are available
on this page and on further pages.
29 April to 6 May, 2007
Army
Field Manual on Map Reading and Navigation
Dated May, 1993 and July, 2001, this is a U.S.
Army manual on reading, using, and understanding maps. The Table of
Contents is huge -- defining maps, explaining how to access and care for
maps, symbolization and reference systems, location, scales, grids,
overlays, and comparing aerial photographs with maps; there is also a
"part 2" on Land Navigation. including GPS, elevation and relief, and
much, much more. An extraordinary document.
6 to 13 May, 2007
David Rumsey Map Collection
This collection has nearly 16,000 antique and
historical maps online. North and South America are featured, but
historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia, and Africa are also abundant.
Navigation is quite easy, and they are adding maps all the time -- another
1000 maps were just added at the beginning of April.
13 to 20 May, 2007
Matt Fox's Google Earth
Library
A remarkable effort to organize the content that
is available for Google Earth. The blog focuses on content that shows off
the technical abilities of Google Earth, has significant educational
value, is of wide interest, and covers a large geographic area. There are
numerous features, and navigation is quite easy. There are a prodigious
number of categories, tweaks, mashups, and applications featuring
everything from Antarctica to Natural Disasters, Travel, and even the
Supernatural.
20 to 27 May, 2007
Atlas Nacional de Mexico
The National Atlas of Mexico is now available
online. Hundreds of maps, mostly of very high quality, on subjects
ranging from History to Economy. At present there are 600 images in 7
sections.
27 May to 3 June, 2007
Computer Generated Cartograms
From London's Daily Mail of 1 March, this article,
with several examples, of a collaboration between the universities of
Michigan and Sheffield, showing various interesting themes by changing the
size of countries according. Interesting maps, with cartograms that don't
adhere to some traditional standards for such maps -- having the countries
balloon larger or smaller, rather than just get magnified.
3 to 10 June, 2007
Vital
Climate Graphics Africa
The latest report from the UNEP/WMO panel on
climate change notes a warming of .7 degrees C over most of Africa during
the 20th century. There is general agreement that extreme events will get
worse, and that trends will change in response to warming. This
collection of discussions and graphics gives a very vivid picture of the
adverse impacts warming is bringing, and will continue to bring, to
Africa. See for example these maps
of the dramatic reduction in size of Lake Chad.
10 to 17 June, 2007
HEALTHmap
HEALTHmap, a creation of two people at Boston's
Children's Hospital, is a very clever Google Maps mashup, bringing
together data sources to show the current state of infectious diseases
globally, and their effects on human and animal health. The sources
include news sources, the World Health Organization, and others, and
includes names and locations of over 80 diseases. You can view globally,
or by region or country, and a click on a marker gives you links to the
citations for the particular diseases outbreak. A powerful and
informative website.
17 to 24June, 2007
UN States in 10 Minutes
A clever and very challenging little task -- type
in the names of all 192 of the UN member states in a 10-minute time limit.
You must type the names correctly, although capitals don't seem to matter.
As soon as you type a name correctly, it goes into the "finished" list,
and you can begin typing the next. At the end of 10 minutes, you get a
list of the countries you forgot. There is also a 15-Minute Version,
which is more of a geography challenge, and less of a speed-typing
challenge.
24 June to 1 July, 2007
Global Warming Vanishing Coastlines Mug
Many scientists and others have theorized that
global warming will cause the seas to rise, and the present-day coastlines
to disappear. When you add a hot beverage to this clever mug, it
demonstrates what could happen if sea level were to rise 100 meters: big
parts of the southeast US, a large portion of Brazil and Argentina, and
most coastal cities just disappear. If nothing else, it's food for
thought and discussion.
1 to 8 July, 2007
US
States Renamed for Countries With Similar GDPs
A strange and wonderful map that suggests all
sorts of similar excursions into comparative map-making. In this map,
each state's economic output is compared to countries around the world;
the result is totally meaningless and yet fascinating. For example,
California's GDP equals that of France, while Wyoming and Uzbekistan have
a similar GDP.
8 to 15 July, 2007
Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World
This map is the result of "World Values Surveys",
designed to measure and assess area of human concern, "from religion to
politics to economic and social life". Two dimensions dominate, and this
this world map was created along those two axes -- 1. Traditional to
Secular-Rational, and 2. Survival to Self-Expression values. Again, by
itself this map is interesting, but even more so in what it suggests about
possible other maps people could create.
15 to 22 July, 2007
The Principality of Hutt River
A tiny little area in Western Australia, the Hutt
River Principality is Australia's oldest micronation. There are about 20
permanent residents, and an additional 13,000 passport holders worldwide.
The area was the wheat farm of Leonard George Casley, who on 21 April 1970
declared independence from Australia, and became Prince Leonard I. They
issue stamps and coins, and presumably make some money from tourism, but
as an independent entity they have yet to be recognized by any other
country. Although landlocked, the Principality has its own navy.
22 to 29 July, 2007
American
Ethnic Geography
This is the web site for a geography course at
Valparaiso University. Among its features: an amazing collection of maps,
in the "Map Gallery" -- some GIFs, some PDFs. Topics include Ethnic
Groups, Culture Regions, Religion, Language, Politics, and
Socio-Economics.
29 July to 5 August, 2007
Animated Atlas:
Growth of a Nation
A lovely little 10-minute animation presenting the
growth of the United States from the original 13 colonies to the present.
There are several features -- sound, changing the views of the timeline,
selecting individual states for further information, etc.
5 to 12 August, 2007
Google for
Educators
Google has gathered all kinds of information and
tools to make Google work effectively in the classroom -- everything from
lessons on creating an effective search string to best uses for Google
Earth, ideas and lesson plans on Google Maps in the classroom, and what
they call "crib sheets" to help teachers and students with Groups, Page
Creator, Picasa, Sketchup, Blogger, and more. The site includes a variety
of posters for classroom use, acccess to an online Teacher Community, and
information about their free "Teacher Academy".
12 to 19 August, 2007
Zoom Into Maps
The U.S. Library of Congress has created this site
to help students use historic maps from the LOC collection, and to
understand what maps can tell us. A very large sample of the Library of
Congress Geography and Map Division's 4.5 million maps has been digitized
and is available on this site. The maps are well organized, easily
navigated, and the site includes organizers and guiding questions.
19 to 26 August, 2007
UNESCO World Heritage site
With the addition on June 28 of seven new sites,
the World Heritage List now contains 848 properties, including 656
cultural sites, 167 natural sites, and 25 'mixed' properties. Also on
June 28, the World Heritage committee took the unprecedented step of
removing a site -- the Oman Oryx Sanctuary -- because the Omanis announced
their intention to reduce the size of the site by 90 percent. An
interesting list in its own right, but also a fascinating cross-section of
world history and culture.
26 August to 2 September, 2007
AirportLinger Airport
Browser
Very interesting archive of google maps, showing
photos of each of 2300 airports, worldwide. You can enter an airport
code, or select a country and then a city and airport. They offer an
OpenSearch airport locator which you can install in your browser, so that
anytime you want to view an airport, you can simply type the code without
actually having to begin at the airportlinger.com website.
2 to 9 September, 2007
Mars Images
The Mars reconaissance orbiter features a special
camera called the HiRISE camera, collecting imagery of the Mars surface in
incredible detail. For details on the orbiter, check here
9 to 16 September, 2007
Explore the Sky with
Google Earth
If you haven't already downloaded and made use of
Google Earth, here's another reason: with Google Earth 4.2, downloadable
now, you can click on the "sky" button and view the night sky directly
over some point on Earth, and quickly switch between Earth and SKy.
There are lots of interesting layers to turn on and off -- Hubble images,
constellations, planets, and much more. The link here will take you to
their video introduction, and a download button.
16 to 23 September, 2007
Earth Trends
The World Resources Institute sponsors this
wonderful little page -- for each "research topic" there are several
options, including Data Tables, Features, Country Profiles, Maps, and a
Searchable Database. Within each searchable database are dozens of
topics, which can be broken out by region, country, or other factors.
Amazing volume of data here, presented in a very usable manner.
23 to 30 September, 2007
Breathing Earth
Created by David Bleja, a student at Monash
University in Melbourne; about this site he says "Breathing Earth is a
presentation that displays the carbon dioxide emission rates, birth rates,
and death rates of every country in the world. It displays this
information visually, and in real-time. I built the presentation in Flash,
using graphics that I made in Photoshop. The data used was the most
up-to-date I could find, taken from wikipedia.org." It's a fascinating
presentation; watch for a few minutes -- or leave it on in the background
while you do something else -- and see how the Earth has changed since you
began watching.
30 September to 7 October, 2007
Planiglobe
A German site you can use to create your own
digital maps -- select boundaries, or center on a city and zoom in or out,
add layers, add places, develop a useful legend, make it printer-friendly,
or download the map you've created in either postscript or illustrator
versions. Very friendly, easy to navigate, fun to use. One of the
cleanest "maps on demand" sites I know about. Note that the map data used
is from the mid-90's, and much of it has been corrected, but they do
advise that data may be outdated or incorrect.
7 to 14 October, 2007
Google Maps
Google Maps again, but it's worth revisiting
because it just keeps getting better and better. In mid-September, they
added 54 new countries, and so now have well over 100 countries for which
maps are available. There are so many ways to use and enjoy these maps,
both for personal use, for school use, for work and travel. To help users
see what's available, and for general discussion of the possibilities,
there are several blogs, among them: Latlong,Google Maps Gone Wild,
and Google Maps Mania
14 to 21 October, 2007
Historical
Hurricane Tracks
New on the NOAA website, an interactive mapping
application that allows users to search and display tropical cyclone data
for the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific. This site only provides historic
information, from 1851-2006, including a tool for querying the database.
For this year's tropical cyclones and tracks, NOAA offers the National Hurricane Center.
21 to 28 October, 2007
World Freedom Atlas
Very political, but deeply fascinating, this set
of maps describes itself as "a geovisualization tool for world
statistics". The base map is "raw political rights score", but you can
overlay it with data from many different organizations, and all sorts of
data, including "civil liberties", "freedom status", "electoral process",
and more, as well as viewing maps over available years from 1990 to 2006.
28 October to 4 November, 2007
Matt Rosenberg's Geography Quizzes
Matt Rosenberg, the "guide" at
geography.about.com, has a very useful archive of his weekly geography
quizzes; these are fascinating and challenging quizzes that cover a wide
range of geographical topics. For 'pub nights', or for fun, or for
preparing for the next "geography bee", these are worth a visit, as is the
entire site at Geography.about.com
4 to 11 November, 2007
Wal-Mart
A flash map showing the spread of Wal-Mart
stores across the United States. Truly eye-opening.
11 to 18 November, 2007
World Digital
Magnetic Anomaly Map
Amazingly beautiful and weird, this is a global
grid of the anomalies in magnetic intensity around the world, at an
altitude of 5 KM. Compiled from satellite, marine, aeromagnetic and
ground magnetic sources. A plug-in for Google Earth is available.
18 to 25 November, 2007
USGS Education Pages
Links to lessons, maps, and explanations about the
Earth and how it is changing. Includes several links to quizzes.
25 November to 2 December, 2007
Sheppard
Software
A collection of very entertaining and thoughtfully
created games and activities built around geographic facts, map reading,
and more. There are pages on the US, and on Africa, Asia, Canada, Mexico,
Eurpoe, the Middle East, Oceania, South America, and the Globe. For each
activity, there are several levels -- a tutorial level, and then tests for
beginner, intermediate, Expert, and "Cartographer". Great fun, great link
for school and home use.
2 to 9 December, 2007
Geonet Games
A fun and interesting online game from Houghton
Mifflin; select a region, then choose from 6 categories of questions. For
each category there are 5 or 6 questions; the game keeps track of your
score. The questions are very reminiscent of the practice questions for
the National Geography Bee, and might be a useful warmup for that kind of
activity.
9 to 16 December, 2007
I Like To Learn
A collection of location and place-name games that
are nicely constructed and would make good review activities. I like to
dig into websites and see who the creator and host are, and curiously,
this domain is registered in Estonia, and no other information is
available about the site. I don't think that's a problem, but it is
noticeable that the creator of the site doesn't even have an "about us" or
"who we are" page.
16 to 23 December, 2007
OECD Statistics Page
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development is a loose affiliation of the governments of 30 countries
"commited to democracy and the market economy". The site itself, at http://www.oecd.org is worth exploring, but
this particular page is their "Frequently Requested Statistics" page,
comparing all kinds of data with and between the member countries,
everything from Car Registrations to Hourly Earnings. An interesting site
to visit. Another site worth visiting is Canada vs
the OECD which compares the environmental records of the member
nations relative to Canada's record. Very interesting stuff.
23 to 30 December, 2007
Population Reference Bureau
PRB presents very complex demographic data in
clear and accurate ways, making it possible to quickly find and understand
a lot of the issues related to what they call "Core Themes" --
Reproductive Health and Fertility, Children and Families, Population and
the Environment, and Population Futures. You can select from several
topics, and then choose regions or individual countries. There is a lot
of very powerful data here.
2013 -
2012 - 2011 - 2010 - 2009 - 2008 - 2007 - 2006 - 2005 - 2004 - 2003 - 2002 - 2001 - 2000 - 1999 - 1998 - 1997 - 1996
|
Teacher eagle and student eagles
