While researching a lesson I came across a superb case study example of appropriate technology in the region from the Practial Action NGO.

Play the Darfur is Dying game for a glimpse of the daily struggle for many refugees. [Via Tony Cassidy]

Stefan points to Google Earth technology holding future world leaders to account for the humanitarian outcomes of their actions. For the first time carefully sourced and researched satellite imagery can be used to support lessons about forced migration and similar topics. The images below show the impact of recent attacks on villages in Madoua, Chad.

March 2006 November 2006

Google Earth file for above images

The Human Rights Google Earth layers cover Chad, Sudan, Lebanon and Israel and Zimbabwe. They take a long time to load in some cases; worth remembering before using them in a class situation. Find the layers here

This post has also been published at Juicy Geography’s Google Earth blog

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.

Correlating development data
Select Chart and compare different indicators, for example Life Expectancy and Income. What correlations can be found?

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.

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.

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.

The map was published in an article by Adrian G White of the University of Leicester. The accompanying text is well worth reading for such gems as:

A recent survey (Easton, 2006) found that 81% of the UK population agreed that the Government’s primary objective should be the creation of happiness not wealth. Earlier this year David Cameron, HM Leader of the Opposition, put happiness firmly on the political agenda by arguing that “It’s time we admitted that there’s more to life than money, and it’s time we focused not just on GDP, but on GWB – general well-being” (BBC, 2006).

I never thought I’d hear that from a Tory!

Firstly, Maplecroft Maps have sent an email to their users announcing that a selection of their excellent maps are available for Google Earth. Great news as the screenshot of the world AIDS data shows:

World AIDS data

Meanwhile Frank Taylor and Barry Hunter offer a network link to display the shiny Blue Marble imagery from NASA that dramatically improves the initial look of Google Earth. Added is a link to the near real-time global cloud data. This layer uses the new alttiude feature of Google Earth 4, so you can zoom in past the clouds on your way to the surface. Truly a great network link. Frank hopes that the Google team will implement an official version soon. It makes me slightly worried for the vast number of schools who are constrained by hardware to the older version of Google Earth. Hopefully Google won’t withdraw version 3 any time soon. Head immediately to Google Earth Blog for the network link!


Blue Marble and Global Clouds

Close analysis of the data is encouraged; one can overlay maps in order to discern relationships between data sets, and a hotspot icon draws attention to critical information.

click to enlarge

The maps examine the response of business and government to the various issues, and icons describe cases of particularly good, or by contrast, poor examples of corporate responsibility.
The site will appeal across the KS3/4 geography curriculum, particularly for more able students with an inquisitive nature, and should be indispensible to A level students looking for material on sustainable development.