Putting Antarctica on the Map

This six-day unit has students examine historical maps of Antarctica and research early explorers to gain perspective on how cartography and our understanding of the globe have changed. The curriculum materials contain teacher tools including individually downloadable readings, detailed daily breakdowns of tasks, teacher strategies for using the activities, a portfolio grading sheet, a project rubric sheet, and supplemental readings. In addition, a Web activity in which students examine and compare historical maps and their modern-day equivalents, highlights how map-making techniques have changed. A classroom activity in which students examine the history of Antarctic exploration and conduct research on a topic of interest and several readings that provide a broad perspective, including excerpts from early explorers' journals and an interview with a marine biologist who studies the history of Antarctica, round out the unit. A student handout provides guidance for putting together student portfolios and examples of creative final projects. Educational levels: High school, Middle school

The light of a new age

Given here is the address of NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin to the Association of Space Explorers. Mr. Goldin's remarks are on the topic of why we should go to Mars, a subject he approaches by first answering the question, What would it mean if we decided today not to go to Mars? After a discussion of the meaning of Columbus' voyage to America, he answers the question by saying that if we decide not to go to Mars, our generation will truly achieve a first in human history - we will be the first to stop at a frontier. After noting that the need to explore is intrinsic to life itself, Mr. Goldin presents several reasons why we should go to the Moon and go to Mars. One reason is economic, another is to increase our scientific knowledge, and yet another is to further the political evolution of humankind through the international cooperation required for building settlements on the Moon and Mars. He concludes by expanding upon the idea that this nation has never been one to shrink from a challenge

Derivation of topographic feature names in the Apollo 15 landing region

Location and derivation of nomenclature for lunar topographic features in Apollo 15 landing regio

Institute for Global Environmental Strategies

The Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) is concerned with Earth science-related education, communication and outreach, and coordinating international Earth observation policy. IGES not only develops and implements educational programs for teachers and students, but also works closely with industry leaders, senior-level government representatives and decision makers throughout the world in the area of Earth observation. They have developed a group of learning activities entitled The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, which are available on the Web for use in the classroom. Educational levels: Intermediate elementary, Middle school

Half-Remembrance of Things Past: Critics and Cuts of Old

[No abstract][No keywords]

Deep Earth explorers

The Cambridge Deep Earth Seismology group has an exhibition at the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge, aimed at increasing understanding of our planet and changing perceptions of geophysics – and geophysicists. Group members Jennifer Jenkins, Jess Bartlet and Sanne Cottaar tell us more

Adventuring into Complexity by Exploring Data: From Complicity to Sustainability

Problems of sustainability are typically represented by major present-day challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental and social injustice. Framed this way, sustainable lives and societies depend on finding solutions to each problem. From another perspective, there is only one problem behind them all, stated by Gregory Bateson as: “…the difference between how nature works and the way people think,” and complexity provides a way to define and approach this problem. I extend Edgar Morin’s conceptions of restricted and general complexity into pedagogy to address problems of simplicity and reductionist teaching. The proposed pedagogy is based on long experience teaching a data-oriented course in which I engage geoscience majors in exploring data rather than in finding answers. They use data tools that emphasize visual understandings over quantitative models and the value of multiple possibilities over a single certainty. The tools, teaching and assessments bring complicity, the entanglement of the nominally objective with the subjective, to the fore so that students develop understandings of the phantom objectivity that characterizes “the way people think.” I suggest that complexity-oriented learning based on data exploration can be adapted to other disciplines and even used in non-academic areas since information in the modern world is strongly reliant on quantitative data

Adventuring into Complexity by Exploring Data: From Complicity to Sustainability

Problems of sustainability are typically represented by major present-day challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental and social injustice. Framed this way, sustainable lives and societies depend on finding solutions to each problem. From another perspective, there is only one problem behind them all, stated by Gregory Bateson as: “…the difference between how nature works and the way people think,” and complexity provides a way to define and approach this problem. I extend Edgar Morin’s conceptions of restricted and general complexity into pedagogy to address problems of simplicity and reductionist teaching. The proposed pedagogy is based on long experience teaching a data-oriented course in which I engage geoscience majors in exploring data rather than in finding answers. They use data tools that emphasize visual understandings over quantitative models and the value of multiple possibilities over a single certainty. The tools, teaching and assessments bring complicity, the entanglement of the nominally objective with the subjective, to the fore so that students develop understandings of the phantom objectivity that characterizes “the way people think.” I suggest that complexity-oriented learning based on data exploration can be adapted to other disciplines and even used in non-academic areas since information in the modern world is strongly reliant on quantitative data

Master of Arts

thesisUpon the conclusion of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, the areas formerly under their control experienced an era of uncertainty regarding their political future. Although early Western historians of China have mistakenly held the Qing Empire to be synonymous with China, more recent work in the field of Chinese history suggests important distinctions between the two. Thus, the notion of how Qing territories came to be conceptualized as part of an emerging Chinese nation is worth further examination. In the maps and other data compiled by European explorers in the region during this time, it is possible to glimpse the uncertainty of the trajectory of the former Qing regions. From the viewpoint of cartography, we can see evidence of the variety of voices that eventually would come to shape the nation that emerged. Europeans, of course, were simply one of many forces that shaped China as a nation, but they uniquely represent how Chinese nationalism functioned in a global nationalist context. Much of the question surrounding nationality in China revolved around concepts of ethnicity and the potential success of a multiethnic state drawn from Qing era precedents. The struggle and diversity of input present in these maps serves to remind us that China as we know it was forged in a dynamic process, and the geographically and ethnically complex nation that emerged was always far from guaranteed, the ripples of which can still be felt in China today