Archive for January, 2007

Gapminder - some teaching ideas

Published by Noel Jenkins on January 31, 2007 in GIS and Teaching resources. 3 Comments

Updated 4/2/07
Gapminder is a BRILLIANT way to analyse development indicators. A range of development data can be plotted on a map or chart and animated over time. Gapminder website

Here are some suggested activites to introduce the Gapminder site to students

Download an illustrated guide to Gapminder (Word doc) Thanks very much to Val Vannet who produced the first version of this document. This could be printed off and laminated. Thanks also to Alan Parkinson for mentioning the Trails feature in his recent comment. Gapminder also provide an excellent tutorial on the application here.

Mapping development indicators
Start by selecting Map, and looking for patterns by selecting different development indicators for the countries.
gap map

Correlating development data
Select Chart and compare different indicators, for example Life Expectancy and Income. What correlations can be found?
gap chart
Students could be asked to try and identify data that gives a positive correlation on comparison (e.g. carbon dioxide emisions and income) or negative correlation (e.g. fertility rate and phone use)

Analysing trends
Try choosing Life Expectancy and analysing changes over time (select Time for the x axis.) Track selected countries by selecting them, clicking the Trails box and playing the animation.
gap time

In the screenshot I coloured the countries by income , but why has Botswana, a middle income country, seen a dramatic decline in life expectancy in recent years? Students really should know why!

Exploring urbanization trends
Compare Urban Population and Time, and track countries from different income groups. In the screenshot example I changed the circle size to one size and the colour to Income Group.
gap urban

In a recent lesson, these activities proved sufficient to turn the students into fairly competent Gapminder users.

I recommend watching Hans Roslings’ entertaining presentation at the TED Talks and visiting the Gapminder.org site for more resources and downloads.

Interactive climate map / graph drawing in Excel

Published by Noel Jenkins on January 30, 2007 in ICT and Teaching resources. 2 Comments

This interactive world map simply pops up a climate graph as the mouse is rolled over the hotspots. How useful is that?

climate map

It’s a simple and effective idea for introducing students to climate graphs.

Guides to graph drawing with Excel (inlcuding a suggested method for producing climate graphs) can be found at Learning and Teaching Scotland.

Thinking about a new design

Published by Noel Jenkins on January 29, 2007 in Asides. 0 Comments

Since discovering the impressive Subtle theme for Wordpress, (via the excellent Education/Technology) I’ve been thinking that it’s time for a re-design of Digital Geography.

The current theme has been hacked around a bit too much and as a result some features no longer work properly. I’ve upgraded to Wordpress 2.1 and feel that it’s time to get the site looking a bit more streamlined. Another alternative is to go for my favourite Wordpres theme, Cutline (used on my Google Earth blog) Either way, the site will be looking a bit different for a few days.

Google / Gapminder collaboration

Published by Noel Jenkins on January 28, 2007 in Teaching resources. 2 Comments

Thanks to Education/Technology blog for news that Google is collaborating with the Gapminder organization to produce a web based version of their development data visualization tool, previously available as as standalone application. It’s in beta at the moment and can be found here.

gapminder

Population gazetteer

Published by Noel Jenkins on January 27, 2007 in Google Earth and Teaching resources. 0 Comments

I discovered the World Gazetteer of population of towns and cities.

The data can be conveniently downloaded as a Google Earth file which opens a placemark with the data in the balloon as shown:

circle population click to enlarge

A very useful resource, whether or not the Google Earth feature is used. A related post can be found at my Google Earth blog.

Shaded relief mashup

Published by Noel Jenkins on January 27, 2007 in Google Maps and Teaching resources. 0 Comments

Jon Parker wrote with information about his new map project, that mashes Google Maps with custom tiles showing the world in shaded relief. It’s a really nice piece of work, that represents topography very clearly.

shaded relief

Visit www.shaded-relief.com and have a look.