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Why Afghanistan Is Impossible to Conquer

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Folk Customs From Around the World

Folk customs (a.k.a. traditional customs) are developed and practiced primarily by small, homogeneous groups living in more isolated rural areas.

Read more and view gallery...

Popular Culture As Global Culture

Popular customs are found in large, heterogeneous societies that share certain habits despite differences in personal characteristics.

Read more and view gallery...

Global Cola Wars (and other familiar scenes)

A ubiquitous element of popular culture is the global soft drink and fast food industries. Originating in North America, these popular products...
Read more and view gallery...

Global Supermarket

Many products on the shelves of supermarkets in other countries are produced and traded all over the world, and are common to us all.

Read more and view gallery...

Dale Lightfoot is Professor in the Department of Geography at Oklahoma State University. He has authored or co-authored more than 50 publications and has worked in or traveled through more than 140 countries. Dr. Lightfoot enjoys "dusty boots" fieldwork and frequently travels to research historic landscapes, traditional uses of water, and human-environment relationships. He also loves to travel just for adventure; to experience random encounters, understand connections, appreciate difference, and to learn about the people and places of the world.

All photos copyrighted and taken by Dale Lightfoot (unless otherwise noted).

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Folk customs (a.k.a. traditional customs) are developed and practiced primarily by small, homogeneous groups living in more isolated rural areas. Read more and view gallery... Popular customs are found in large, heterogeneous societies that share certain habits despite differences in personal characteristics. Read more and view gallery...

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Katz on Geography Now - Petites Projects

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2021 AP Human Geography Exam: Administration 1: TUESDAY, MAY 4th @ 12:00PM Administration 2: FRIDAY, MAY 28th @ 12:00PM Administration 3: TUESDAY, JUNE 8th @ 12:00PM

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This textbook is used by students at California State University, Northridge, and by students at several dozen other colleges and universities. Some high schools are using it for AP Human Geography.

Students enrolled in sections using this text scored better on a variety of standardized assessment measures than those enrolled in sections using another, very popular, text in 2014.

Instructors and students are welcome to use the text free of charge. All are also welcome to make a donation to help keep the resource free of charge. You can donate via paypal or if you use Venmo, just scan the code at right (@gravesgeography)

Keep in mind that the author has no editorial staff of any sort, so typos and broken links are more common than I'd like. Corrections are made as often as possible, often at the end of each semester. Please note upload dates for each chapter, so that you may be certain you have the latest update.

On the left navigation bar, or the navigation icon in the upper left corner of your screen, you'll find links to individual chapters in the Table of Contents that you may read online or download as Adobe portable document files (.pdf).

The entire textbook (.pdf) is available on for download via Dropbox or Google Drive. The full version is Edition 3.11 (Summer 2020) is large, so I recommend you view/download chapters indivdually. Chapters linked in the Table of Contents may be be newer as upgrades and edits are completed.

Money saved by students at just Cal State Northridge versus buying new since adoption in Spring 2014

$451,175 *

(at $175 - the average bookstore price of the two leading alternatives)

Enjoy! Learn!

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Introduction to Human Geography: A Disciplinary Approach

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This textbook is used by students at California State University, Northridge, and by students at several dozen other colleges and universities. Some high schools are using it for AP Human Geography. Students enrolled in sections using this text scored better on a variety of standardized assessment measures than those enrolled in sections using another, very popular, text in 2014.

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The right is crying wolf on antisemitism. That's endangering Jews | Aaron Freedman

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When the term antisemitism is cheapened by false usage on the right, it gives cover to the real antisemites

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AMSCO® Advanced Placement® Human Geography

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For over 20 years, David Palmer has taught social studies at Eaglecrest High School in the Cherry Creek, Colorado, School District and currently teaches world geography and AP ® Human Geography. He is a Colorado Geographic Alliance teacher consultant, College Board ® consultant, 2012 NCGE Distinguished Geography Teacher award winner and a table leader, reader, and test item creator for the AP ® Human Geography Exam.

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Johns Hopkins University remains the largest private-sector employer in Greater Baltimore. The nonprofit employs 27,095 workers in the Baltimore area, up 1,226 from last year.

Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC) bumped up to the top five this year with 10,400 local employees, and University of Maryland Medical System moved up to the No. 2 spot, surpassing Johns Hopkins Health System.

Below, you can see the top five largest private-sector employers in Greater Baltimore. Subscribers can view the full top 100 List here.
5. Northrop Grumman Corp. 4. MedStar Health 3. Johns Hopkins Health System 2. University of Maryland Medical Center 1. Johns Hopkins University

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The 5 largest private-sector employers in Greater Baltimore - Baltimore Business Journal

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Johns Hopkins University remains the largest private-sector employer in Greater Baltimore. The nonprofit employs 27,095 workers in the Baltimore area, up 1,226 from last year. Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC) bumped up to the top five this year with 10,400 local employees, and University of Maryland Medical System moved up to the No.

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Home to approximately 2.7 million people, the Greater Baltimore region is the 20th largest metro area in the United States and the key economic center in Maryland. Baltimore-based businesses, universities and organizations are at the forefront of numerous growth industries, making it a popular meeting and convention destination with extensive resources and built-in audiences.

The region's top five private sector employers (and number of local employees) are:

Johns Hopkins University (31,360)

Johns Hopkins Health System (18,853)

University of Maryland Health System (14,600)

MedStar Health (12,439)

Northrop Grumman (9,197)

Source: Baltimore Business Journal Book of Lists, 2013
Healthcare

Some of the world's most respected medical institutions are found here. Our medical schools, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the University of Maryland School of Medicine, are leaders in healthcare education, and our research facilities pave the way for a healthier future.

More than 189,000 healthcare professionals are employed in the region and cover all medical specialties and research programs. In fact, Baltimore ranks 3rd nationally in the concentration of U.S. health-care service employees.

More than $3 billion has been invested in recent hospital expansions in the region, including Johns Hopkins Medical Campus; the University of Maryland, Baltimore; Mercy Hospital; Baltimore/Washington Medical Center; Upper Chesapeake Medical Center; and St. Agnes.

Across the nation, Baltimore is known for some pretty impressive numbers:

#1 Research and development funding, Johns Hopkins University (1)

#1 Hospital in the U.S, Johns Hopkins Medicine (2)

#2 Active physicians per 100,000 residents, with more than 24,000 doctors statewide (3)

#3 Best U.S. medical school, Johns Hopkins Medicine (2)

#4 Best cancer hospital, Johns Hopkins Medicine (2)
Sources: (1) National Research Corporation; (2) U.S. News and World Report; (3) American Medical Association and U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, data for 2009; ranking excludes Washington, D.C.
Downtown Area Medical Services & Hospitals

410-752-3010 (Downtown Baltimore Location) Concentra Medical Center with Urgent Care

www.concentra.com

410-955-5000 (General), 410-502-4000 (Patient Information) Johns Hopkins Medicine

www.hopkinsmedicine.org

410-332-9000 (General), 410-332-9555 (Patient Information) Mercy Medical Center

www.mdmercy.com

410-328-8667 (General), 410-328-6971 (Patient Information) University of Maryland Medical Center

Biosciences

Home to hundreds of bioscience companies, research-intense federal institutes and centers, and universities, Greater Baltimore is one of the world's hubs for medical research and discovery. In fact, the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and Johns Hopkins University have been attracting billions of dollars in annual research funding, and the Baltimore/Washington region ranks 6th in biotech venture capital funding since 2008.

The Baltimore/Washington region also ranks 2nd nationally in concentration of biohealth professionals, with 85 percent of the companies and activities within Maryland. Overall, the Northeast Corridor leads the nation in employment in this sector.

The University of Maryland BioPark has spent nearly a decade developing a community of science on Baltimore's Westside. The billion-dollar project covers 10 acres (12 acres at full build out) and 1.8 million square feet of office and laboratory space. Just minutes from the Baltimore Convention Center and the Inner Harbor, the BioPark provides additional meeting space and facilities for convention and meeting groups. Meanwhile, East Baltimore has welcomed the opening of a new biotech area known as the Science + Technology Park at Johns Hopkins. This billion-dollar project features 1.1 million square feet of office and lab space spanning 31 acres. The $86 million [email protected] Research & Technology Park in nearby Baltimore County includes 350,000 square feet of space on a 71-acre campus (North and South campuses combined).

More than 2,500 biological and science degrees are awarded annually in the region.

Higher Education

More than 340,000 students attend Maryland's 59 accredited two- and four-year colleges and universities. Baltimore, which was named one of Kiplinger's "10 Greatest Cities for College Grads" in 2011, serves more than 135,000 of these students.

Regional institutions have attracted plenty of national attention:

#1 Liberal Arts College - Public, U.S. Naval Academy

#1 Up-and-Coming School, University of Maryland Baltimore County

#3 Best Medical School, Johns Hopkins

#5 Regional Universities (North), Loyola University Maryland
Source: U.S. News and World Report
Baltimore ranks 4th nationally among metro areas in the percentage of residents with advanced degrees and 8th in the percentage of residents with bachelor's degrees.

More than 54,000 people are employed in the region's educational services sector, among the highest of any major U.S. metro area. The concentration of academics within the greater Baltimore region provides local support and potential audiences for meeting planners in any field or endeavor. Furthermore, Baltimore colleges and universities feature top-notch athletic programs and have venues that are well suited for large-scale amateur athletic events.

Colleges and Universities

The following colleges and universities are located in the Greater Baltimore region: Baltimore City Community College/BCCC; Coppin State University; Goucher College; Johns Hopkins University; Loyola University Maryland; Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA); Morgan State University; Notre Dame of Maryland University; The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University; Sojourner-Douglass College; Stevenson University; Stratford University (formerly Baltimore International College); Towson University; University of Baltimore; and University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Government

Located a short drive from our nation's capital, Baltimore is home to more than a dozen federal agencies and is second only to Washington, D.C., in federal government civilian employment concentration. The region is home to several major agencies, including National Security, U.S. Cyber Command, Social Security and Medicare. Federal government offices account for more than 73,000 non-military employees in Greater Baltimore, 70,000 of which work for the five largest federal operations. BRAC led to the addition of 4,300 Defense Information Systems Agency employees at Fort Meade, Maryland, in 2011.

With Maryland's capital, Annapolis, in the Greater Baltimore area, state government employs more than 64,000 in the region, making it No. 1 amongst the 25 largest metro areas in the U.S. in state government employment concentration.

The number of government agencies in the region leads to a high concentration of governmental contracting firms, including IT and defense. The Baltimore-Washington Corridor ranks No. 1 in the country in IT employment concentration, and Baltimore ranks 6th in the professional, scientific and technical employment concentration. Maryland ranks 2nd in the Technology and Science Work Force Index, as well as in Tech and Science Workforce by Milken and No. 3 in the State New Economy Index by The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

Information Technology

The number of government agencies in the region leads to a high concentration of governmental contracting firms, including information technology (IT) and defense. The Baltimore-Washington Corridor is the strongest IT market in the U.S., ranking higher in IT employment concentration than areas such as the Silicon Valley and Boston. The large percentage of IT employment in the region is due in part to premier programs at many Maryland and Greater Baltimore colleges and universities. Eight Greater Baltimore colleges and universities are recognized as NSA Information Assurance Centers of Excellence, and the University of Maryland Baltimore County has the second highest percentage of graduates in the STEM fields of all state universities. Greater Baltimore specifically features very high concentrations in industries like data processing and technical consulting. In 2012, Forbes named Baltimore one of the nation's top five best cities for tech jobs, with a nearly 40 percent growth in employment in the industry since 2001.

Defense Contracting

Due to Greater Baltimore's proximity to Washington and the Federal Government, defense contractors consider Baltimore an ideal place for business. Research and development at local universities and some of the world's largest defense contractors support and drive the region's IT industry. Maryland's aerospace and defense industry includes 12 major military installations, 16 of the country's largest top 25 aerospace companies and 70 of the top 100 defense contractors. These employers are leaders in the advancement of space exploration, satellite technology and research, design and installation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's) and robotics. Leading research and development facilities in the region, including Fort Meade and Aberdeen Proving Ground, also create an unparalleled environment for the study of defense-related activities, including biodefense, ordnance and weapons testing and cyber security.

Cyber Security

Baltimore-Washington is home to more than 200,000 cyber security professionals, with more than 75,000 in Greater Baltimore/Central Maryland, and the industry is rapidly growing. As of January 2013, approximately 20,000 open cyber security jobs were available in more than 1,800 cyber security companies in Maryland, and just more than 13,000 of those open positions were in the Baltimore region, including the city. Important agencies and local offices of leading national cyber security companies are located in Anne Arundel, Howard and Baltimore counties, including the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command (both house at Fort Meade), Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Booz Allen Hamilton and Raytheon. In October 2013, the third annual CyberMaryland Conference was held at the Baltimore Convention Center, and the University of Maryland Baltimore County's cyber security graduate program, just a few years old, continues to educate the industry's up-and-coming leaders. The National Cyber Security Hall of Fame, with offices on UMBC's campus, was also created in 2012 and is supported by companies and organizations committed to recognizing the individuals that played a key role in the creation of the cyber security industry, according to its mission statement.

Professional, Scientific & Technical Services

The Professional, Scientific & Technical Services (PST) industry in Greater Baltimore ranks among the top five major U.S. markets for PST employment growth in the past year. According to Maryland Workforce Exchange VOS Online Jobs data, the PST industry was responsible for the highest number of job openings in the state as of January 1, 2014. In fact, in the past 10 years, new and expanding PST firms in the region have added 23,200 employees. Specifically, Greater Baltimore's employment concentrations are among the highest in the U.S. in PST subsectors including architecture and engineering, computer systems design and scientific research and development.

Financial Services

With a focus on investment banking and wealth management, the Greater Baltimore region continues to maintain its lofty position within the financial services sector, with more than 74,300 employed in a wide range of companies and positions. There are more than 10,000 financial managers, advisors and specialists in the region, an increase of 1,600 financial service jobs in Greater Baltimore in the past year. The region continues to expand employment in portfolio management and insurance and employee benefit funds.

Sports

Baltimore is a major-league town, home to baseball's Orioles, the NFL Ravens and indoor soccer's Baltimore Blast. A stadium complex housing Oriole Park at Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadium is easily accessible from I-95 and I-395 and is a quick walk from the Baltimore Convention Center and the Inner Harbor. M&T Bank Stadium is also used for events such as collegiate lacrosse championships, the Army-Navy football game and international soccer matches. It can seat 71,008 fans and has 119 suites. Oriole Park seats 45,971, and fittingly is located just two blocks from the birthplace of Babe Ruth. The city will host the Colonial Athletic Association's Men's Basketball Championship from 2014 through 2016, as well as the first-ever Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) biennial global golf match, the International Crown tournament, on July 21-27, 2014.
Unless otherwise noted, the information on Greater Baltimore's economy and industry sectors is provided by the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore. For more information, visit www.greaterbaltimore.org.

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Home to approximately 2.7 million people, the Greater Baltimore region is the 20th largest metro area in the United States and the key economic center in Maryland. Baltimore-based businesses, universities and organizations are at the forefront of numerous growth industries, making it a popular meeting and convention destination with extensive resources and built-in audiences.

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For as long as Indonesia has existed-even during colonial times-Jakarta has been its capital. But the 10 million-strong coastal city that sits on the northern coast of Java will soon lose that title, thanks to some serious infrastructural and environmental challenges.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo decided Monday after a cabinet meeting to push forward on this long-anticipated plan, reports the Jakarta Post. The idea of moving the capital city stretches to the country's first president, Sukarno, in 1945 after it gained independence from the Dutch. It's finally becoming reality as the city's reached a tipping point with congestion, air pollution, and, well, climate change.

In fact, the BBC has dubbed Jakarta the world's fastest-sinking city. It ain't lying: The city, parts of which are already below sea level, has sunk 13 feet in the past 30 years, according to Reuters. The highly vulnerable city could be permanently flooded by 2050 as sea levels are expected to rise at least 20 inches and potentially even 5 feet by some estimates, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. Along with sea level rise, the pulling groundwater for human use has reduced the region's elevation, as the ground can compacts or shrinks when there's less water running through it, as the Asean Post has noted.
"We want to have a capital that represents the nation's identity and improves the efficiency of the central government and establish a smart, green and beautiful city."
All this is why the government is finally moving the capital city-but this won't be an easy task. First of all, it'll cost up to $33 billion, according to CNN. Moving a capital not only requires building new government offices and embassies, said Deden Rukmana, the chair of Alabama A&M University's Department of Community and Regional Planning who specializes in urban development in the country. Moving a capital also requires moving all the people who work in these buildings.

"Everybody needs to be on board," Rukmana told Earther.

That being said, he thinks it's a great idea, necessary even. He's been arguing since 2008 that Indonesia needs to hurry up and move its capital. There's too much urban development in the city currently: too many people, cars, and buildings. It can't handle much more if it's to run efficiently. Removing all the government activity related to a capital can help relieve some of that. The city finally launched its mass transit system at the end of March to help alleviate some of its traffic.

Recent urbanization has been stretching beyond city limits too, Rukmana explained, eliminating agricultural fields to the south and replacing them with residential and commercial areas, as well as industrial complexes. That means when the rains come- which varies from 70 to 125 inches a year throughout the country's lowlands -the floodwaters have nowhere to go. And the city floods every year; 13 rivers run through the it, and best believe they fill up with water.

So far, the government hasn't announced when this move will happen or where the next capital will be. BBC, however, is reporting Palangkaraya on Kalimantan (the Indonesian part of Borneo). Rukmana would like to see it somewhere on this island. What's key is that it not be on Java anymore, he said-the island is simply too congested.

"We need to have another place to build," he told Earther.

Jakarta wouldn't be abandoned. The government envisions it becoming the New York City of Indonesia, the country's financial heart. However, Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan doesn't believe this decision will reduce the traffic in his city, the Jakarta Post reports. Private cars are the issue there, not government vehicles, he said.

Either way, an underwater city is not a future for anyone-government or private. Jakarta is one of the county's "vulnerability hotspots," according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. Moving the capital elsewhere won't help the people who have to nowhere else to go.

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Indonesia Is Moving Its Capital City as the Current One Sinks Into the Sea

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For as long as Indonesia has existed-even during colonial times-Jakarta has been its capital. But the 10 million-strong coastal city that sits on the northern coast of Java will soon lose that title, thanks to some serious infrastructural and environmental challenges.

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What Laws Apply In International Waters?

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Racial segregation is usually discussed in the context of where we live, and for good reason.

Government policies forced people of color into poor, racially segregated neighborhoods, which were incredibly harmful to residents. And these neighborhoods ended up being the basis for how we form our social networks.

But if our environments matter so much, what about the place we spend most of our lives: the workplace?

This was the conversation that researchers Matthew Hall, John Iceland, and Youngmin Yi wanted to kick-start.

By tracking the dramatic shift in segregation from day to night, the researchers hoped to get a fuller understanding of how and where we encounter people of other races. Because they tracked people by neighborhood, they could get a granular understanding of what kinds of places become more diverse during the day.

They found that when white people go to work, they are around only slightly more people of color than when they're in their home neighborhoods. But for everyone else, going to work means being exposed to many more white people - and far fewer people of their own race.

Hall shared their data with us, which we made into the interactive map above. In nearly every community in the US, these patterns - of neighborhoods being relatively diverse during the day but becoming highly segregated at night - are visible to some extent.

One way to interpret this data would be to say that our workplaces and the neighborhoods they're in help us overcome the stubborn residential segregation patterns that we find ourselves stuck in. In other words, our workplace neighborhoods offer something of an escape from our highly segregated residential lives.

Work segregation is getting worse, and racial hierarchy still reigns supreme

But the study also cautions against reading too optimistic of a take from the data.

For one thing, the researchers found that work neighborhood segregation is actually increasing. This falls in line with recent research from John-Paul Ferguson and Rembrand Koning showing that segregation within our workplaces is higher than it was a generation ago.

Moreover, when researchers looked at what kind of attributes correlate with more diverse work neighborhoods, they found that it was places with the highest amount of occupational inequality.

In other words, these workplaces are more diverse - but that's because all the managers are white and all the janitors are black and brown. And Hall says this unequal power dynamic is more likely to cause potential conflict than environments where racial groups are on a more equal footing.

This research provides a fuller picture of the racialized environments we occupy, from day to night. But if there's one thing that's apparent from exploring these maps, it's that the shadows of residential segregation follow us wherever we go during the day.

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American segregation, mapped at day and night

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Racial segregation is usually discussed in the context of where we live, and for good reason. Government policies forced people of color into poor, racially segregated neighborhoods, which were incredibly harmful to residents. And these neighborhoods ended up being the basis for how we form our social networks.

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Racial covenants and housing discrimination in 20th century Minneapolis.

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When we think about where we live, usually our ideas start with political boundaries-we'd say we live in a particular state, city, or town. Ask about a neighborhood, sports team loyalties, or regions not defined by borders, though, and it might get a little fuzzier. In densely settled places like the East Coast, sprawl can make it hard to draw lines around places, too. Where in New Jersey does the New York City region end and the Philadelphia region begin?

These larger urban areas are sometimes called "megaregions," and in a new paper, published in PLOS ONE, Garrett Dash Nelson, a historical geographer from Dartmouth, and Alasdair Rae, an urban analyst from the University of Sheffield, teamed up to identify them across the United States, using commuting data and a computational algorithm.

Essentially, they used data describing more than 4 million commutes to look at how small units of place-census tracts-are connected into much larger units of place. One of the results from their algorithm is the map above, which shows how the country is divided into economically entwined regions that don't conform to city or state boundaries. Pittsburgh's region spills into Ohio and West Virginia; Denver's tips over the border into Wyoming; and Oklahoma City's reaches into Missouri and Arkansas.

There are limits to what an algorithm can do, though, the researchers argue. They point to this little isolated region, rendered in green, that floats in eastern Kentucky, near the Virginia and West Virginia borders:

"This area really is coherent and independent in a certain sense, for it has very weak commuter relations with neighboring communities," the researchers write. But, they wonder, does that mean it should be considered its own region, on this basis alone?

Their conclusion is that the algorithmic, data-driven divisions shouldn't be taken as gospel but can be informed by a human, interpretative understanding of the results. Taking the data-derived regions and massaging them just a little bit, the researchers come up with this map of U.S. megaregions:

It's a coherent view of the country that resonates on an instinctive level, even if some parts remain curious, like the wide region out West that expands over Salt Lake City and sneaks across Idaho and Nevada into California that doesn't get a name. Or the part that's simply labeled Deep South.

Apparently there are geographical quandaries that even humans and algorithms together can't solve.

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Here Are the Real Boundaries of American Metropolises, Decided by an Algorithm

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When we think about where we live, usually our ideas start with political boundaries-we'd say we live in a particular state, city, or town. Ask about a neighborhood, sports team loyalties, or regions not defined by borders, though, and it might get a little fuzzier.

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Learning Objectives_APHGCED - Listed on TpT - Do Not Delete

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Data on A ton of Stuff - Useful for most units 

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Data on A ton of Stuff - Useful for most units 

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The United States is the world's largest exporter of agricultural products, and is also one of the top food-producing countries due to its large expanse of land and relatively low population density. According to the 2012 census of agriculture, the U.S. has 2.1 million farms, covering 915 million acres. Even though every state is involved in the agriculture industry, the vast majority of farms are found in the Midwest/Great Plains area, due to this region's flat, arable land. As a result of geography and different levels of urbanization, each state's level of agricultural production varies significantly and so do the agricultural products that each state specializes in.
Our latest visualization uses data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to map out the most valuable agricultural commodities in each state, as well as the total price for that commodity. Agricultural products include crops, plants, livestock, poultry, dairy, and more. As you can see in the map above, some states have a much higher-value agricultural production than others.

Top 5 States With the Highest-Value Major Agricultural Commodity

1. California: $17.6 billion in fruit, tree nuts, and berries
2. Iowa: $17.1 billion in grains, oilseeds, dry beans, and dry peas
3. Illinois: $13.6 billion in grains, oilseeds, dry beans, and dry peas
4. Texas: $13 billion in cattle and calves
5. Minnesota: $12.3 billion in grains, oilseeds, dry beans, and dry peas

Bottom 5 States With the Lowest-Value Major Agricultural Commodity

1. Alaska: $29.8 million in aquaculture
2. Rhode Island: $32.8 million in nursery, greenhouse, floriculture and sod
3. New Hampshire: $54.8 million in milk from cows
4. Massachusetts: $144.2 million in nursery, greenhouse, floriculture and sod
5. Hawaii: $152.9 million in grains, oilseeds, dry beans, and dry peas

There are also several regional trends that appear in the visualization. For example, most of the Midwest produces grains, oilseeds, dry beans and dry peas as their most valuable agricultural commodity. In the Southeast, poultry and eggs are the main agricultural product. In the Southwest, cattle and calves are more popular. In the Northeast, the two main agricultural commodities are milk from cows and nursery, greenhouse, floriculture and sod products. There are also a few outliers, such as the aquaculture industry in Alaska and the vegetables, melons, and sweet potatoes industry in Arizona and Maine.

The agricultural products corresponding to the highest values on the map tend to be grains, oilseeds, dry beans, and dry peas. Conversely, products related to nursery, greenhouse, floriculture and sod, as well as aquaculture, have the lowest values on the map. In general, states in the Northeast (which tend to be smaller in area and/or more heavily urbanized) have lower levels of agricultural output than states in the Midwest, the South, and California.

Interested in how other types of economic production differ across states? Here is our visualization of the most profitable industry in each state.

Data: Table 1.1

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The Most Valuable Agricultural Commodity in Each State

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The United States is the world's largest exporter of agricultural products, and is also one of the top food-producing countries due to its large expanse of land and relatively low population density. According to the 2012 census of agriculture, the U.S. has 2.1 million farms, covering 915 million acres.

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How Brexit could create a crisis at the Irish border

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Mankind the story of all of us - Revolutions 10/12

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Mankind, the story of all of us - Revolutions 10/12 History channel

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In this lesson students will:

Learn about the design elements of a map.

Apply an analytical framework to analyze maps.

Consider maps as sources that contain bias.

Assess the value and limitations of using maps as sources.

Videos
Videos were produced in collaboration with the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library.
Reading maps: What is a map? (Ronald Grim)

Reading maps: Visual design elements (Ronald Grim)

Reading maps: How to analyze a map (Michelle LeBlanc)

Analyzing a map: "Imperial Federation," 1886 (Michelle LeBlanc)

(optional) Analyzing a map: "Colton's Map of the United States," 1854 (Michelle LeBlanc)

(optional) What is georeferencing? (Michelle LeBlanc)

Handouts
Design Elements and Big Ideas on a Map Analyzing a Map Note to Teachers: There are excellent online sources for primary source maps that you can use with this lesson. The following sites provide digitized maps that cover a range of locations and time periods. Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library University of Texas-Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection Library of Congress
Maps to accompany the Choices curriculum unit, A New Nation:

In the Classroom

1. Framing the Lesson

Write the following question on the board: "What is a map?" Ask students to share their responses. What different types of maps have students seen and used? Show the Choices video, Reading maps: What is a map? with Ronald Grim, Curator of Maps for the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library. After viewing the video, review the concepts of selectivity and bias. How are maps selective? What does Grim mean when he says that maps are like stories and contain bias? In what ways does this make maps similar to other types of sources? Tell students that in this lesson they will learn about how to analyze the selectivity and bias in maps.

2. Introducing Design Elements

Explain that, since maps are biased and selective sources, it is important to consider the choices that go into making a map and how these choices influence what the map shows. Distribute "Design Elements and Big Ideas on a Map" and have students read the Part I instructions. Show the Choices video, Reading maps: Visual design elements (Ronald Grim). Students should complete the first table on their handout as they watch the video. You may wish to pause the video after each design element is mentioned to give students time to take notes. After watching the video, ask students to share their responses from the handout. Why is each design element important to consider? How does it show the mapmaker's bias?

3. How to Analyze a Map

Remind students that they should examine a map for its point of view and the information that is included and left out, just as they would examine written sources. Knowing about the design elements of a map is helpful when doing this critical analysis. Direct students to read the Part II instructions on "Design Elements and Big Ideas on a Map." Show the Choices video, Reading maps: How to analyze a map with Michelle LeBlanc, Director of Education for the Norman B. Leventhal Map and Education Center at the Boston Public Library. As they watch the video, students should complete the first column of the second table on their handout. Next, show the Choices video, Analyzing a map: "Imperial Federation," 1886 (Michelle LeBlanc). Students should fill in the second column of their table, recording examples of each big idea based on the map in the video. (For an additional example of how to apply the analytical framework, watch the video Analyzing a map: "Colton's Map of the United States," 1854) Review students' responses from the handout. What is each "big idea" that LeBlanc advises students to look out for when analyzing a map? Encourage students to name specific examples from the map in the second video.

Ask students to make connections to Ronald Grim's videos. How do the design elements of a map contribute to each of the big ideas in Michelle LeBlanc's videos? For example, how might decorations and symbols reveal the perspective of a map, or its audience and purpose? What choices can a mapmaker make around orientation or center of focus? Where did students hear LeBlanc refer to these design elements in her analysis? Encourage students to refer to specific examples from the videos when possible.

4. Applying the Framework

Form pairs of students. Distribute "Analyzing a Map" and a map to each pair. Direct students to follow the instructions on their handout to analyze their map.

5. Sharing Findings

Invite a few students to show the class the map they examined and share their analysis of the big ideas revealed in the map. Presenters may choose to read aloud the paragraph they wrote or simply use their handout as a reference.

6. Concluding Discussion

After a few different maps have been shared, ask students to reflect on the process they used to analyze the maps in today's lesson. How did paying attention to design elements and big ideas shape their understanding of each map? Was this method different than the ways students had previously studied maps? Ask students to consider the value and limitations of maps as sources. What kinds of information do maps present that may not be available through other types of sources? In what ways is a map's information limited? What additional sources might be helpful to examine alongside a map, in light of these limitations?

Extra Challenge

Show the video, What is georeferencing? with Michelle LeBlanc. Invite students to come up with a question that they think could be explored using data collected through georeferencing technology. Have students write a proposal explaining how they would use georeferencing to answer their question.

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In this lesson students will: Learn about the design elements of a map. Apply an analytical framework to analyze maps. Consider maps as sources that contain bias. Assess the value and limitations of using maps as sources. Videos were produced in collaboration with the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library.

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Lessons to connect the content of your classroom to the headlines in the news.

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South China Sea: Maritime Conflicts

In this lesson students explore, discuss, and evaluate multiple perspectives on maritime disputes in the South China Sea.

FEATURED LESSON

Puerto Rico's Recovery After Hurricane Maria: Who is Responsible?

In this lesson students learn about the post-hurricane situation in Puerto Rico within a broader context of U.S.-Puerto Rican relations.

We keep a full archive of all of our past Teaching with the News curricula and lessons. view archive

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Teaching with the News - The Choices Program

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Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display Skip to Content Lessons to connect the content of your classroom to the headlines in the news. FEATURED LESSON In this lesson students explore, discuss, and evaluate multiple perspectives on maritime disputes in the South China Sea.

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The history of our world in 18 minutes | David Christian | TED

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Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

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This unit includes 2 free lessons introducing students to the food system.

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Privacy Policy ·Terms of Use ·Help Center

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The videos on the above pages are meant to enhance an AP Human Geography lesson. Some of the videos are serious, and some are silly. Some of the videos are controversial and intended for class discussion and debate. Some of the pages will have prompts / questions to accompany the videos.

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2019Click on each topic to access the .PDF file for that question.

2019 - Question 2/Version 1: Demographic Indicators of Infant Mortality Rate and the effect of sustainability goals in South Asia
2019 - Question 3/Version 1: Devolutionary impacts of Cultural Diversity, Regional Economies, and physical geography on Spain or Nigeria
2008 - Question 1: Von Thunen Model/Burgess Concentric Zone Model Comparison (Agriculture/Industry) 2019 - Question 3/Version 2: Effects of Nationalism and Supranationalism on borders in Europe
2017 - Question 3: Federal and Unitary governments
2016 - Question 2: Politics of language - Bilingualism in Canada
2015 - Question 1: Gerrymandering and reapportionment
​2014 - Question 2: Consequences of superimposed borders in Africa
2012 - Question 1: Border Walls and Barriers
2010 - Question 2: National Identity
2006 - Question 3: Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces
2005 - Question 1: Supranationalism and Devolution
2002 - Question 1: Nations, States, and Nation-States
2017 - Question 2: Population Growth, Rate of Natural Increase, and Anti-natal policies
2015 - Question 3: Refugees and their impacts on their countries of origin and receiving countries
2013 - Question 2: Reasons for and consequences of aging populations in Developing Countries
2012 - Question 3: Muslim Population growth in Europe
2011 - Question 2: Mathusian Theory
2010 - Question 3: Population Pyramids/Demographic Transition Model
2008 - Question 2: Regional Migration Patterns in the United States
2006 - Question 1: International Migration Patterns
2005 - Question 2: Historical Immigration to the United States
2003 - Question 3: Historical Migrations to and from Europe/Demographic Transition Model

2018 - Question 3: Diffusion of popular culture language expressions
​2015 - Question 2: English as the world's most important lingua franca
2009 - Question 2 : Religion clusters in the United States
2007 - Question 1: Extinct and Revived Languages
2003 - Question 2: Effects of tourism on the Cultural Landscape
2002 - Question 3: Effect of Religion on the Cultural Landscape

Unit V: Agriculture, Food Production, and Rural Land Use
2019 - Question 1/Version 1: Food Deserts in Developed Countries and their impact on cities
2018 - Question 1: Female labor force in Agriculture (Africa)
2016 - Question 3: Subsistence and Commercial Agriculture and their impacts
2014 - Question 3: Effects of coffee production of producer & consumer countries
2012 - Question 2: Subsistence Farming and Shifting Cultivation
2009 - Question 3: Organic and Dairy Farm trends in the United States
2007 - Question 1: Von Thunen Model of Land Use
2004 - Question 2: Distribution of Poultry Farms in the United States
2001 - Question 1: Green Revolution

2019 - Question 1/Version 2: Transition to Postindustrial Economies - Effects on Int'l Division of Labor, women in the labor force and development of brownfields
2016 - Question 1: Development - Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary economic activities
2014 - Question 1: Compare Rostow & Wallerstein models of development
2013 - Question 1: Agglomeration industries: Silicon Valley
2011 - Question 3: Industrial Location: Auto Industry in the United States
2010 - Question 1: Weber's Least Cost Theory: Location of Ethanol Plants in the US
2008 - Question 3: Gender Development/Education
2007 - Question 2: International Division of Labor
2006 - Question 2: Location of Services: Call Centers
2004 - Question 1: Location of Industries: Maquiladora Plants in Mexico
2003 - Question 1: Core-Periphery Model2018 - Question 1: Mixed Use Development and New Urbanism
2001 - Question 3: Rostow's Stages of Development

2019 - Question 2/Version 2: Development of Galactic Cities, spatial organization of Edge Cites, and smart growth
2018 - Question 2: Positive and Negative impacts of gentrification
2013 - Question 3: Influence of transportation model on urban growth patterns
2011 - Question 1: Primate Cities/Rank Size Rule
2009 - Question 2: Squatter Settlements in LDCs
2005 - Question 3: Urban Revival
2004 - Question 3: Urban population/demographic structure
2002 - Question 3: Urban population patterns: Female Households
2001 - Question 2: Development of the Suburbs.

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2019Click on each topic to access the .PDF file for that question.

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High school geography teacher learning, teaching and doing geography

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Survival of a Folk Culture_ The Old Order Amish.pdf

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Click on the image to download the PowerPoint:

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Can your students find North Korea on a map? South Africa? Venezuela? Greece?

Why does it matter?

As the image above shows, The Times reports from all over the globe. We have journalists in more than 30 international news bureaus worldwide, and every day we publish news, feature stories, videos, slide shows and more from dozens of countries around the world.

Our new "Country of the Week" feature celebrates this abundance to help build students' geography skills. A weekly interactive quiz will first introduce students to a country via a recent video or photograph, then ask them to find that place on a map. Next, the quiz will focus on the demographics and culture of the country. Finally, we'll include links to recent reporting from that place in case they, or you, would like to go further.

While we'll certainly be choosing parts of the world that are making front-page headlines, we'll also select interesting places they may simply enjoy learning about via Times visual journalism - as with this 360-degree view of riding the teleférico high above La Paz, Bolivia.

We've long considered producing some kind of geography-focused activity for students, but a recent Upshot piece gave our idea more urgency. The article reported on an experiment in which researchers asked Americans to locate North Korea on a map. Just 36 percent got it right. As a follow-up question, respondents were asked which policies the United States should pursue regarding North Korea. The results?

Respondents who could correctly identify North Korea tended to view diplomatic and nonmilitary strategies more favorably than those who could not. They also viewed direct military engagement - in particular, sending ground troops - much less favorably than those who failed to locate North Korea.

What does this all mean? And why is it important? The article continues:

In "Why Geography Matters," Harm de Blij wrote that geography is "a superb antidote to isolationism and provincialism," and argued that "the American public is the geographically most illiterate society of consequence on the planet, at a time when United States power can affect countries and peoples around the world."

This spatial illiteracy, geographers say, can leave citizens without a framework to think about foreign policy questions more substantively. "The paucity of geographical knowledge means there is no check on misleading public representations about international matters," said Alec Murphy, a professor of geography at the University of Oregon.

Our first "Country of the Week" will publish on Monday, Sept. 18, and you can look for new quizzes most Mondays during the school year.

We'd love to hear what you think about this new feature: Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

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Announcing a New Feature to Build Students' Geography Skills

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Can your students find North Korea on a map? South Africa? Venezuela? Greece? Why does it matter? As the image above shows, The Times reports from all over the globe. We have journalists in more than 30 international news bureaus worldwide, and every day we publish news, feature stories, videos, slide shows and more from dozens of countries around the world.

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AP Human Geography: The Course | AP Central - The College Board

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Explore essential course resources for AP Human Geography, and review teaching strategies, lesson plans, and other helpful course content.

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Colin Woodward and Tufts/Brian Stauffer

In his fourth book, " American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures in North America," award-winning author Colin Woodard identifies 11 distinct cultures that have historically divided the US.

"The country has been arguing about a lot of fundamental things lately including state roles and individual liberty," Woodard, a Maine native who won the 2012 George Polk Award for investigative reporting, told Business Insider.

"[But] in order to have any productive conversation on these issues," he added, "you need to know where you come from. Once you know where you are coming from it will help move the conversation forward."

Here's how Woodard describes each nation:

Yankeedom

Encompassing the entire Northeast north of New York City and spreading through Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, Yankeedom values education, intellectual achievement, communal empowerment, and citizen participation in government as a shield against tyranny. Yankees are comfortable with government regulation. Woodard notes that Yankees have a "Utopian streak." The area was settled by radical Calvinists.

New Netherland

A highly commercial culture, New Netherland is "materialistic, with a profound tolerance for ethnic and religious diversity and an unflinching commitment to the freedom of inquiry and conscience," according to Woodard. It is a natural ally with Yankeedom and encompasses New York City and northern New Jersey. The area was settled by the Dutch.

The Midlands

Settled by English Quakers, The Midlands are a welcoming middle-class society that spawned the culture of the "American Heartland." Political opinion is moderate, and government regulation is frowned upon. Woodard calls the ethnically diverse Midlands "America's great swing region." Within the Midlands are parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska.

Tidewater

Tidewater was built by the young English gentry in the area around the Chesapeake Bay and North Carolina. Starting as a feudal society that embraced slavery, the region places a high value on respect for authority and tradition. Woodard notes that Tidewater is in decline, partly because "it has been eaten away by the expanding federal halos around D.C. and Norfolk."

Greater Appalachia

Colonized by settlers from the war-ravaged borderlands of Northern Ireland, northern England, and the Scottish lowlands, Greater Appalachia is stereotyped as the land of hillbillies and rednecks. Woodard says Appalachia values personal sovereignty and individual liberty and is "intensely suspicious of lowland aristocrats and Yankee social engineers alike." It sides with the Deep South to counter the influence of federal government. Within Greater Appalachia are parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Indiana, Illinois, and Texas.

Deep South

The Deep South was established by English slave lords from Barbados and was styled as a West Indies-style slave society, Woodard notes. It has a very rigid social structure and fights against government regulation that threatens individual liberty. Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina are all part of the Deep South.

El Norte

Composed of the borderlands of the Spanish-American empire, El Norte is "a place apart" from the rest of America, according to Woodard. Hispanic culture dominates in the area, and the region values independence, self-sufficiency, and hard work above all else. Parts of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California are in El Norte.

The Left Coast

Colonized by New Englanders and Appalachian Midwesterners, the Left Coast is a hybrid of "Yankee utopianism and Appalachian self-expression and exploration," Woodard says, adding that it is the staunchest ally of Yankeedom. Coastal California, Oregon, and Washington are in the Left Coast.

The Far West

The conservative west. Developed through large investment in industry, yet where inhabitants continue to "resent" the Eastern interests that initially controlled that investment. Among Far West states are Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Washington, Oregon, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Nebraska, Kansas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California.

New France

A pocket of liberalism nestled in the Deep South, its people are consensus driven, tolerant, and comfortable with government involvement in the economy. Woodard says New France is among the most liberal places in North America. New France is focused around New Orleans in Louisiana as well as the Canadian province of Quebec.

First Nation

Made up of Native Americans, the First Nation's members enjoy tribal sovereignty in the US. Woodard says the territory of the First Nations is huge, but its population is under 300,000, most of whose people live in the northern reaches of Canada.

Woodard says that among these 11 nations, Yankeedom and the Deep South exert the most influence and are constantly competing with each other for the hearts and minds of the other nations.

"We are trapped in brinkmanship because there is not a lot of wiggle room between Yankee and Southern Culture," Woodard says. "Those two nations would never see eye to eye on anything besides an external threat."

Woodard also believes the nation is likely to become more polarized, even though America is becoming a more diverse place every day. He says this is because people are "self-sorting."

"People choose to move to places where they identify with the values," Woodard says. "Red minorities go south and blue minorities go north to be in the majority. This is why blue states are getting bluer and red states are getting redder and the middle is getting smaller."

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This map shows the US really has 11 separate 'nations' with entirely different cultures

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Colin Woodward and Tufts/Brian Stauffer In his fourth book, " American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures in North America," award-winning author Colin Woodard identifies 11 distinct cultures that have historically divided the US.

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The English Premier League is arguably the world's most popular sporting competition, and certainly the world's most watched soccer league. It boasts a TV audience of 4.7 billion. Walk down a street in Sao Paulo or Lagos, Portland or Phnom Penh, and the one common denominator you'll see is someone wearing the shirt of a leading Premier League club.

A new data visualization produced by Twitter maps the global support for the EPL, based on the location of followers from each of the Twitter accounts of the league's 20 teams. It's probably not the most accurate assessment of worldwide fandom - a minority of people in the world are on Twitter, and following a team's Twitter account doesn't necessarily mean you back it. But the results seem credible.

[20 historical empires that explain the English Premier League.]

On the map, larger concentrations of color reflect a greater number of Twitter users following certain teams. Large splotches of color may make it seem that overwhelming majorities of fans support one particular team in a country, but that's not the case. In most countries, loyalties are narrowly divided between the league's powerhouse clubs: Manchester United (red), Arsenal (yellow), Chelsea (blue) and Liverpool (teal).

The interactive map can be read almost as a kind of timeline. The Premier League launched in 1992 as a flashy commercial departure from the stodgy, traditional soccer structure in England.

As WorldViews discussed last year, the league's fortunes soared along with that of Manchester United, which steadily racked up trophies under the stewardship of legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson. The club's popularity is reflected in parts of Africa and Asia, where the obsession with the EPL has given it a commercial edge over other leagues in Europe.

Arsenal, one of London's traditional powerhouses, has a huge global following, too, a direct consequence of its success in the late 1990s and early 2000s as the EPL started to eclipse its European rivals in popularity. The past decade has represented a fallow period for the north London club. But its global popularity has endured, buoyed by the club's general competitiveness, its reputation for playing an aesthetically attractive style and its status as relative underdogs - at least compared with a few other teams with more financial muscle.

That perhaps explains why Arsenal, according to Twitter, is the most-supported English club in the United States - where backing the underdog is a natural choice for neutrals, but also where everyone wants to be a winner.

Chelsea, in blue, was a modest London club with not much history (beyond a particularly conspicuous legacy of neo-fascist hooliganism) before it was bought up by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich in 2003. His petrodollars have turned Chelsea into a giant and the most successful British club in recent years. The areas where it's most popular reflect countries or continents where the EPL arrived later, penetrating markets that either had their own robust competitions or where other European leagues, particularly those in Spain and Italy, were more popular.

In Britain, where support for English teams runs deepest, Liverpool is still a dominant force. No English club won more titles than Liverpool before the 1990s. But, in the Premier League era, it has been surpassed by nearby rival Manchester United, and even Manchester City, a new force backed by the riches of Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund.
Related on WorldViews The English Premier League, explained through empires in history Manchester United and the global rise of the EPL 20 goals that changed the world

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english premier league; soccer; football; twitter; manchester united; arsenal; chelsea; liverpool

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Map: How English soccer teams rule the world

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The English Premier League is arguably the world's most popular sporting competition, and certainly the world's most watched soccer league. It boasts a TV audience of 4.7 billion. Walk down a street in Sao Paulo or Lagos, Portland or Phnom Penh, and the one common denominator you'll see is someone wearing the shirt of a leading Premier League club.

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Someone living in Arkansas is far more likely to visit the Marshall Islands than the average American. In Kansas, they're more likely to visit Germany. And for Virginians? Bolivia is the top destination.

These are the findings in new data from Facebook, which has tracked where users "check in" when they're traveling abroad during the summer since 2012.

The results don't necessarily reflect the most popular destinations outside the United States - those are overwhelmingly Mexico and Canada - but instead show which locations are unusually popular with people in a given state, compared with where most Americans travel during the summer.

For many states, the most distinct travel spots are simply whatever is nearby, namely Canada and Mexico. But for others, it's tied to immigrant populations in the state. Tonga might seem like an unusual choice for Utahns, but there are more Tongans living there than in any other state, which helps explain why the tiny Polynesian island ranks so high.

Viewed together, the distinct destinations reveal the hidden patchwork of global travel that can be found only in a country as big and diverse as the United States.

Below, select your state to see the top-five list and more details about travel habits during summer months.

Select to jump to a state

Among all destinations on the list, none were more surprising than Tonga, a tiny Polynesian island in the South Pacific with a population of just 107,122.

Despite the island's small footprint, it was the most unusual summer travel spot for Utahns compared with Americans overall. The state is home to the largest share of Tongan-Americans in the United States. The reason? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which became a popular religion in Tonga in the late 19th century. Utah has an L.D.S. population of more than two million, who make up about 30 percent of all L.D.S. followers in the United States.

Western Europe

Germany held the top spot in Colorado and Kansas, where about a quarter of all residents have German ancestry. There is a large German-American population in the Midwest, especially upper Midwest states like North Dakota.

Despite Britain's being the third-most-popular destination for Americans traveling abroad, it snagged the top spot in just one state: West Virginia. Since there isn't a particularly large share of British immigrants in West Virginia, tourism is a more likely reason for the high ranking.

Eastern Europe

Bosnians make up the largest Eastern European group in Missouri. The Bosnian population is so prominent that St. Louis has a neighborhood called Little Bosnia. Immigration from Bosnia swelled during the early 1990s as refugees fled the war there.

The peak season for Bosnians traveling to their country of origin is July, which coincides with the anniversary of the Bosnian genocide of 1995, when thousands of people were killed. "We have people who will go there to bury the remains of their loved ones, or to visit the graves of the massacre," said Akif Cogo, president of the local nonprofit St. Louis Bosnians. The anniversary probably explains the high rankings in neighboring states Iowa and Kentucky.

Central & South America

Panama is an unusually popular summer destination for Americans living in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee. There is a relatively small number of Panamanians living in the United States - just 105,000 in 2015 - so tourism is the more likely draw.

Brazil held the top spot for Massachusetts, fitting the demographic profile of the region. More than 60,000 Brazilians lived there in 2015, a larger number than in any other Central or South American country. About 47,000 Brazilians lived in the Boston-Cambridge-Newton metropolitan area in 2013, according to the United States Census Bureau.

the Caribbean

For most countries and territories in the Caribbean, tourism is a major economic driver. In the Bahamas, tourism accounts for about 75 percent to 80 percent of the country's G.D.P., according to The World Factbook.

Travel in the summer months can best be explained by migrants visiting family and friends back home. About half of all Dominicans in the United States lived in New York state in 2015, with almost all of them residing in New York City.

Puerto Rico held the top spot for Connecticut, which also aligns with the demographics there: The state has about 279,000 Puerto Ricans, according to the 2014 American Community Survey.

There were about 84,000 Somalis living in the United States in 2015, and about 30 percent of them live in Minnesota. Ryan Allen, a professor at the University of Minnesota who has studied the Somali population in the state, said immigrants have continued to travel home despite an ongoing civil war.

"They saw an opportunity - once they'd become established in the United States and specifically in Minnesota - to go back, not only to reconnect with family and friends, but also to try and help the country," he said.

South Africa held the top spot in Delaware, and the largest driver is probably tourism: Travel from the Americas grew by 10 percent between 2014 and 2016, according to South Africa Tourism. Gustav Visser, a professor who studies tourism at South Africa's Stellenbosch University, noted traveling to the country isn't cheap, so wealthier Americans might account for a higher share of visitors. One possible attraction for them: big-game hunting.

America's northern neighbor held the top spot in nine states, almost all of which share the border. Americans were the most common tourists in Canada during 2015, with 12.6 million visitors spending $7.8 billion, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada.

Mexico was the most distinct destination for many states, especially those along the southern border. The cause can be traced to larger Hispanic populations there. New Mexico, California, Texas and Arizona had the highest share of Hispanic populations in 2015. The one outlier, at least in terms of population, was Oklahoma. It had a Hispanic population of just 10.1 percent in 2015.

Mexico remains a popular tourist destination for Americans, with about 7.9 million Americans flying to the country between January and November 2016, according to U.S. National Travel and Tourism Office. That number was up 11 percent from the same period in 2015.

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The Unusually Popular Summer Travel Spots for Each State

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Someone living in Arkansas is far more likely to visit the Marshall Islands than the average American. In Kansas, they're more likely to visit Germany. And for Virginians? Bolivia is the top destination. These are the findings in new data from Facebook, which has tracked where users "check in" when they're traveling abroad during the summer since 2012.

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Freerice.com | Not Your Average Online Trivia Game

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Play online, learn online and feed the hungry | Freerice.com

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For every correct answer you choose, 10 grains of rice are raised to help end world hunger through the World Food Programme.

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Find here the outline of the Map of Africa from World Atlas.

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We asked our entire international MUNCHIES team and VICE editors around the world to visit their local McDonald's and report back on what they found. This is what they found.

United Kingdom: Bacon Roll

Full disclosure before you read this: I am vegetarian and apart from accompanying inebriated friends to stuff ungodly quantities of McNuggets into their mouths at ungodlier hours of the morning or the one time a weed dealer asked to meet at our local McDonald's, I haven't ventured through the Golden Arches since Happy Meals came with Tamagotchi keychains.

So, when the directive comes to find the McDonald's menu item "local" to the UK, I have to do some research. Isn't British Maccy's basically the same as American Maccy's, except with slightly smaller portion sizes and slightly higher instances of illicit sex in the disabled loos?

Well, actually, the fast food annals of Reddit inform me, no. There are a couple of regional variations on the British McDonald's menu-the main one being the bacon roll, which is sold as a breakfast item until 10:30 AM. Not quite as exciting as McNoodles or as sophisticated and European as being able to order wine with your Big Mac, but who doesn't like bacon butties? (No comment.)

Isn't British Maccy's basically the same as American Maccy's, except with slightly smaller portion sizes and slightly higher instances of illicit sex in the disabled loos?

I arrive at McDonald's hoping to be faced with a McJobbing teenager who will reluctantly ask whether I want fries with that. What I actually find is a row of huge touch screens and signs bidding me to "Order Here." It really has been a while.

I do as I'm told, feeling like I'm standing in front of a huge iPhone as I tap the "Breakfast Wraps and Rolls" button. There, alongside the Bacon & Egg Snack Wrap and Egg & Cheese McMuffin, for the price of £3.69 and 319 calories, is the bacon roll.

The screen offers me the option of ketchup or brown sauce and given that I'm repping Britain today, I choose brown sauce-that vaguely vinegary condiment no one outside of the British Isles really seems to bother with. The McDonald's bots are intent on funnelling me into adding to other items to my meal, and I'm encouraged to choose a breakfast drink and side. I tap the screen for a black Americano but am stumped by the choice of sides. Hash browns make sense and yeah, a blueberry muffin could be quite nice in a breakfast pudding kind of way, but I'm at a loss to think of who would chase a greasy bacon roll with a bag of melon slices. I skip the side and pay.

I wait for my order to appear at the till behind a post-school run mum holding a child's scooter and huge bunch of keys. She collects a coffee while two teenagers in school uniform grab Egg McMuffins to-go. A guy with a neck tattoo seems confused when he is handed a Berry Burst Iced Fruit Smoothie with his sausage wrap. The woman behind the till explains to him that it was part of the order he made on the touch screen.

"Yeah, but I thought it would be an extra sandwich or something!" he says.

I wait until I'm back at the office to unwrap my order. The bread is slightly squashed and not fully toasted, but opens to reveal a generous two rashers of bacon underneath a smear of sauce. No butter. The coffee is ... actually not terrible? Although I realize that for the true British breakfast experience, I should have ordered tea.

With Morrissey's dying animal sound effects echoing around my head, I know that McDonald's bacon roll could never tempt me to break my ten-year run of vegetarianism-no matter how precisely it has been engineered for my home country's palate. I offer it to a colleague. He takes a bite and chews thoughtfully for a minute.

"Needs more brown sauce."

-Phoebe Hurst, MUNCHIES UK

France: Croque McDo

What's the Frenchest item to grab if you happen to be in a McDonald's in France? If you're familiar with the movie Pulp Fiction, you know that "Le Big Mac" stands for "a Big Mac" and that when French people want to order a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, they ask for "Le Royal with Cheese"-the last resurgence of a monarchy we beheaded more than two centuries ago.

That being said, there is a sandwich a foreigner might not notice at first glance. Not because it's part of some sort of French hidden menu-obviously, one that would go with a glass of Bordeaux and a beret or a Beton-striped shirt-but because it might actually sounds like an oddity for someone who didn't grew up in France.

No more useless suspense. I'm talking about the infamous Croque McDo, the Frenchest McDonald item's you could ever possibly get. Croque McDo is a slice of ham and two slices of gooey Emmental between two pancakes, toasted. It appeared on French McDonald's menus in November 2001, during the peak of the mad cow disease crisis in Europe. A McDonald's France rep at the time described the sandwich as a beef-free sandwich, designed to reassure concerned French mothers.

The thing is, the sandwich is quite a bold take on the much-loved Croque Monsieur-bold because you have to be crazy to make a Croque Monsieur without béchamel. Béchamel is to French people what the national flag is to the American: something we deeply cherish and want to see everywhere. So hey, McDonald's France: where's the béchamel?

-Léo Bourdin, MUNCHIES France

Denmark: Kylling & Hummus

When I went to high school in a small town in Denmark, there was a surefire way of getting into the local nightclub: having a student job at McDonald's. The bouncers at club Hollywood Hard Rock got a discount voucher for Big Macs, and us fast-food workers slipped through the queue with no questions asked. Working at McDonald's in my hometown was a brilliant riot of afterwork drinking and privileged pay.

This is almost two decades ago, way before Nordic was new, and when the peak of cool dining was American processed cheese and clamshell-grilled patties. So what does the menu look like now at McDonald's? Is it all fermented grain burgers and scurvy grass smoothies? I stop off at a highway branch outside Skanderborg and bypass the touchscreen displays where most people place their order. At the counter, I'm greeted by Mariam's beaming smile. Mariam has worked at McDonald's for 13 years, and has the patience and professional demeanor of a maitre'd at a three-star Michelin restaurant. She clasps her hands with excitement when I ask for any local Danish specialities.

There is no sea buckthorn in sight; it's all sweet, tropical creaminess.

"I'm so glad you asked me that," she says and points to two burgers on the snack menu that are as Danish as doughnuts: Super Cheese, which doubles up on slices of Emmental, and Tasty Cheese, a slightly smoky marriage of a cheeseburger and a McFeast. The salad options seem much more on point with the local zeitgeist. Even though the label indicates that my bowl of chicken, wild rice, hummus, and cabbage was produced in Sweden, the ingredients are apparently curated specifically for the Danish market. It's raw, healthy and annoyingly delicious (who in their right mind comes here for the raw cabbage?). I wash it down with a Københavnerstang ("Copenhagen ice pop") shake, which is a tribute to a classic Danish ice cream treat with vanilla and pineapple ice cream. There is no sea buckthorn in sight; it's all sweet, tropical creaminess. Back at the office, I add a healthy splash of dark rum and the beast comes to life. A summery cocktail worthy of a nightclub. If only McDonald's would open one of those.

-Lars Hinnerskov Eriksen, MUNCHIES Denmark

The Netherlands: McKroket

The McKroket is a bread-crumbed, deep-fried glob of beef ragout, served on a typical McDonald's bun, garnished with a bit of Dijon mustard that contains actual mustard seeds (yay!) but that's also been mixed with mayonaise (boo!).

You can get something like this (called a broodje kroket) in basically every diner in this country, and they're typically eaten with mustard, though some people (tasteless people, tbh) prefer mayonaise instead.

The Netherlands actually were the first country outside of the Americas where McDonalds tried to set up franchises, back in the 1970s. They failed at first, mainly because they set up their restaurants in the suburbs, which wasn't a terribly successful strategy in the Netherlands. But they did introduce the McKroket, which they served alongside the holy trinity of Dutch children's birthday foods: chicken, applesauce, and fries. (And split pea soup, too. But nobody serves that at Dutch children's birthday parties.)

Anyway, after McDonalds' first attempt to conquer the Netherlands failed, they came back with a vengeance, and the restaurant really took off in the 80s and 90s, at which point they re-introduced the McKroket. It sold so well, they kept it.

A good croquette is a hot, chunky mess of deep-fried goo.

Now, an actual broodje kroket, when you get it at a reasonably good spot, is flat out better than the McKroket. The McDonalds croquette is a bland slab of everyman's beef ragout. The ragout is very plain, very creamy, and not chunky at all. A good croquette is a hot, chunky mess of deep-fried goo. If you try the McKroket, try it once, take it for what it is, and then go get a 'broodje kroket' at Van Dobben or something.

-Jan van Tienen, VICE Netherlands

READ MORE: These 3 Dudes Drove 1,000 Miles to Try the Only McDonald's Pizza in America

Germany: Nürnburger

Is it possible to create a fast food item that incorporates every single cliché about Germany? With the 2010 release of the McDonald's "Nürnburger," basically three pork sausages nestled in a single bun with some mustard, it seemed like the answer was yes. Thanks for nothing, McDonald's.

But three sausages in a bun isn't where this ends: to make the Nürnburger, McDonald's collaborated with one of Germany's most controversial personalities, Uli Hoeneß. Hoeneß was a very successful soccer player who won pretty much everything as a player at his club Bayern München. Once he retired, he became Bayern München's general manager, then its president, and won more or less everything again. And meanwhile, in 1985, he also started a sausage company in Nürnberg. Which is not as odd as it sounds: Hoeneß' father was a butcher, and Nürnberg-or, as it is called in English, Nuremberg-is a Bavarian city renowned for its sausages, "Nürnberger Würstchen."

It's been a while since it was on sale, so no one can really remember what it tasted like. The Nürnburger is still the most iconic German item ever to be on the McDonald's menu, and since Uli Hoeneß's release from prison (he ended up behind bars for tax evasion, but that's another story), there's been a chance it might return. The Nürnburger contains sausages, it's the brainchild of a Bavarian soccer player, and it's vaguely affiliated with crime, but not sex. Does it get any more German?

-Philipp Sommer, MUNCHIES Germany

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We Tried All of the McDonald's Specialty Menu Items Around the World

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We asked our entire international MUNCHIES team and VICE editors around the world to visit their local McDonald's and report back on what they found. This is what they found.

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Louisville, Ky., has garnered much praise for an award-winning data map that visualizes the modern day effects of redlining - a practice that dates back to the 1930s, and involves racial and socioeconomic discrimination in certain neighborhoods through the systematic denial of services or refusal to grant loans and insurance.

This map, dubbed Redlining Louisville: The History of Race, Class and Real Estate, takes historic data about redlining found in the national archives in Washington, D.C., in 2013, and combines it with a timeline of historic events, data about current poverty levels, neighborhood boundaries and racial demographic info. With a host of tools including buttons and sliders, users can clearly see the correlation between the deliberate injustices of the past and the plight of struggling neighborhoods today.

Jeana Dunlap, Louisville's director of redevelopment strategies, said the value of this map is wide-reaching, and that it serves to foster awareness and spur discussion of many civic challenges, including digital equity, poverty, and access to basic needs such as full-service grocery stores and health-care services.

For Louisville CIO Grace Simrall, the map is proving an asset in the city's ongoing work to improve digital equity. City officials have also looked at the map as lens through which to examine digital inclusion, the effort to provide all residents with equal access to technology, as well as the related skills to benefit.

The dialog around digital inclusion has begun to ramp up across the country, with many cities participating this year in the first official National Digital Inclusion Week. Louisville is one of 15 cities currently identified by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance as a trailblazer in this area, and Simrall said the correlation between redlining and neighborhoods with the greatest need for digital equity is so apparent. This correlation, she said, will help drive future efforts and serve as a useful piece of discussions with private companies about why it is important to make deliberate efforts in West Louisville.

"If you read these original documents, it was not just about socio-economic needs," Simrall said. "There were vibrant, financially healthy neighborhoods, but they were African American. It is absolutely racist at its core. I'm proud to work in a government where we fully acknowledge this, that it was institutional racism and that the only way we can really move forward is to talk explicitly about it, and talk about racial equity in all forms."

With the map's February launch, Louisville hosted a series of community events to discuss the findings. Dunlap pointed to these events as key to fostering discourse that is invaluable as Louisville works on revitalizing all neighborhoods within the city. Such work is often done in a vacuum, with civil servants sitting at desks and writing planning policies that alter real lives in places they have little to no first-hand experience. This visualization of redlining, as well as the subsequent community events, is an effort to bridge gaps between policymakers, communities and their mutual understandings of historical struggles that continue to persist to this day.

"I didn't want government to, again, sort of re-create history by sitting in a vacuum and trying to prescribe policy for people without truly understanding the experiences that real people were going through today," Dunlap said. "A lot of people have asked, 'Why are you digging up the past? Are we trying to place blame? Why is this a productive exercise?' Well, the idea is to explain the history and get the stories of people today."

While baby boomers may remember some of what went on, millennials and Gen-Xers did not see redlining at work, and Dunlap said as such, they are more likely to "have no concept of what life was like in terms of racial dynamics back then."

The map was born out of a partnership between Louisville's government and Joshua Poe, an urban planner who now works as project manager for YouthBuild Louisville. Poe finished collecting data for the map in 2014, when Esri's story map format was rising in popularity, and Dunlap and the city collaborated with Poe to fund his efforts.

At a recent conference hosted by Esri, Dunlap discussed the map and said interest in the project from other cities is high. Other than that, she expects this effort to foster transparency about Louisville's history to continue expanding, with dozens of smaller projects feeding into the larger goal of civic revitalization for the entire city.

"Redlining is still a present issue," she said. "It's just evolved past mortgage lending. Home insurance is an issue, car insurance is an issue, access to food and health care in neighborhoods is an issue."

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Louisville's Award-Winning Redlining Map Helps Drive Digital Inclusion Efforts

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Louisville, Ky., has garnered much praise for an award-winning data map that visualizes the modern day effects of redlining - a practice that dates back to the 1930s, and involves racial and socioeconomic discrimination in certain neighborhoods through the systematic denial of services or refusal to grant loans and insurance.

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Google’s Geo Tools aren’t just about geography. You can use them to trace Marco Polo’s journey through Asia, to explore the architecture of Barcelona, to measure how Alaska’s glaciers have receded, or to analyze the habitat of the Cameroon grassland frog. Geospatial thinking has transformed our perceptions of the World around us, and how we address issues such as climate change on and the protection of wildlife.

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If you're having trouble accessing a Google product, there's a chance we're currently experiencing a temporary problem. You can check for outages and downtime on the G Suite Status Dashboard.

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If you're having trouble accessing a Google product, there's a chance we're currently experiencing a temporary problem. You can check for outages and downtime on the G Suite Status Dashboard.

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Exploration = Education, my new motto
This is a guest post by Google Certified Trainer and Innovator, Stacy Behmer.
I had the privilege of attending the Google Geo Institute (#CAGTI17) with approximately 90 other educators from around the world last week to learn more about Google's Geo Tools! I loved using maps with my students and used Google Earth, but my head was spinning with all of the ideas about how we can use the geo tools to help students learn about new places, solve problems, and tell stories!

We may not be able to physically go everywhere, but virtually the possibilities are limitless.

After thumbing through all my links and docs, here are 10 of my many takeaways!

"Everything is something and everything has a place somewhere." John Bailey, Google Geo Education Team. Google Earth is now web based and you can use Pegman and Street View within Google Earth, but you can go places that are off the beaten path and may not be on a street, like these monkeys in the see Street View of Himalayas. These 360 images can easily be embedded into a website or project students are creating.

A new addition to Google Earth is the Voyager Experience! Go to Voyager and select the education tab. Google partnered with National Geographic and other organizations to build content and tell stories from around the world.

There is a power in students creating their own maps to help them visualize information or to tell a story an example of this is two students who collected the Oral Histories of Route 66 and displayed it on a Map. My Maps is can be used for students as they explore events in literature, historical events or even as they study current events. The beauty of My Maps is they are collaborative and can be exported to be brought in as a layer of Google Earth. Kim Randall, @scubagirl812 did a super session on Mapping Made Easy with Google My Maps!

This is another way for students to tell a story using a map! Drop pins, add images, video or text to share your virtual tour. Once a tour is created it can be shared to the gallery or exported as a KML file and added as a layer to Google Earth. Unfortunately, this doesn't have the same collaborative features My Maps does, but the visual display and easy organization is really nice!

There are a lot of data sets out there and Google Earth Engine enables you to track, measure and visualize changes over time. You can look at water patterns and how the Earth's surface has changed over time. Use the Time Lapse link to see how development is changing the landscape of your community. Being able to visualize the data and changes helps to have meaningful conversations with students.

Telling your story doesn't always have to be linear! Thank you to Brooke Whitlow, @BWhitlowEdTech, for sharing Youvisit.com! This site lets you easily create an interactive virtual tour. You can capture your image via any 360 camera app or simply with a Theta 360 Camera (I have the Theta S) and then build your tour with hotspots to add information or highlight key features. Check out the tour that was shared with us by James Allen of the Eminence EDhub. My head is spinning with ideas about how students could not only create a virtual tour of their school but what about helping tell the story of their community and embedding historical events or what their community is known for?

Using Geo Tools to create Location Based AR- This is what excited me the most! Think, make your very own Pokemon Go! Big thanks to Micah Shippee, @micahshippee, for sharing how to use Wikitude to upload your MyMap pins to create your placemarks to get started, but if you want to have more than just text you need to create your placemarks using getech.com and then export them into Wikitude and use the Wikitude app on your mobile device. If you want to learn how to create your own here is Micah's presentation. Below is a screenshot of my first location based AR using My Maps and Wikitude on the Google Campus!

I love the idea of location based AR and having students move around and create it. Jeff Crews, @crewsertech, for showing a few of us Metaverse. This lets you build an series of interactive experiences and turn them into quests, so you can have a scene pop up on your phone when you are in the right location and answer a question or get a clue to move you onto the next location on the map! Building it on the web is slick with a series of drop downs and then you run the app and the icon will show up on your phone or tablet when you start the app! I'm already starting to work on building a quest for around our agency for new staff as part of our orientation Breakout EDU!

9. Theta 360 & Street View

Props to Dean Phillips, @DeanPhillipsMT, for giving me a crash course of his Doing More with 360 session and walking me through how to use the Theta S to add to Google Street View. You can use the camera app within Street View or just connect the Theta to capture a 360 image in one click. The nice thing is you can publish your images for others to see and even stitch them together. Donnie Piercey, @mrpiercey, put together a really nice resource to help folks create their own Street View.

There were a couple of updates to Expeditions while we were in Mountain View, one is the first-person play experience, so students can go through an Expedition independently and see facts pop up for them or listen to information too. The other update is the ability for the guide device to add annotations on the 360 image!

There is also a Moonshot Incubator Project that takes Google Expeditions in Hawaii to another level with lesson plans and images to learn all about our 50th state.

Check out the Google Carboard and Expeditions Ultimate Resource Guide.

It was exciting to hear that the mission of Google Earth is what we do in our classrooms: "Explore everywhere. Learn about anywhere. Create experiences. Share stories." These tools not only provide our students with opportunities to explore the world, but they are also able to capture their own images and share their stories with others! A huge shout out to John Bailey, Emily Henderson, @earthoutreach, and the amazing team of guides who facilitated the three days of learning!

Stacy is a former elementary and middle school teacher and also spent some time as a district technology director. She is currently the Coordinator of Digital Learning from Grant Wood AEA in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where she works with a team of technology consultants providing technology integration support and training to teachers and administrators. Stacy serves on the Iowa Technology Education Connection board which holds a couple of conferences and a series of workshops across the state promoting technology rich learning environments. She is a Google for Education Certified Innovator and Certified Trainer and enjoys learning from and with teachers and students new ways to incorporate technology in teaching and learning! Feel free to connect with Stacy on or .

© Shake Up Learning 2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog's author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kasey Bell and Shake Up Learning with appropriate and specific direction to the original content on ShakeUpLearning.com. See: Copyright Policy.

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10 Amazing Google Geo Tools for Your Classroom

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I had the privilege of attending the Google Geo Institute (#CAGTI17) with approximately 90 other educators from around the world last week to learn more about Google's Geo Tools! I loved using maps with my students and used Google Earth, but my head was spinning with all of the ideas about how we can use the geo tools to help students learn about new places, solve problems, and tell stories!

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BrightSide - Inspiration. Creativity. Wonder.

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Every city and town on Earth is unique, but some specimens are so extraordinary that it's hard to believe they really exist.

Bright Side found the weirdest towns on our planet. Some of them are worthy of a long weekend visit.

12. A town where you can't die

The town of Longyearbyen, Svalbard, is one of the world's northernmost settlements and a place where you officially cannot die. There is a cemetery in the town, but it hasn't been used in 70 years.

The reason for this is the frosty climate, which prevents dead bodies from decomposing and makes them an attraction for wild animals. People who are likely to die soon are transported to mainland Norway by plane.

11. A town straddling 2 states

Towns shared between 2 countries are a more common phenomenon than you might think, but this one is the most unusual of them.

Büsingen am Hochrhein is a German exclave in Switzerland. Economically, it's part of Switzerland; administratively, it's part of Germany.

This is the only German town with the Swiss franc as the main currency.

It has two postal codes: a Swiss one and a German one.

The citizens use both Swiss and German phone numbers.

FC Büsingen is the only German team that plays in the Swiss championship.

10. The most hellish town

The state of Michigan, USA, is a place where you can find Hell. The origin of the name is uncertain, but the town's inhabitants are happy to sustain its infernal image.

Tourists eagerly take photos of themselves with "Welcome to Hell" boards in the background, and the local souvenir shop sells warranty deeds for 1 square inch of land in Hell for $6.66.

9. A Chinese Austrian town

The Chinese are known for making skilled replicas of anything in the world - including whole towns. To have a chance to travel without leaving the country, they decided to rebuild the Austrian village of Hallstatt.

The church was built first, followed by streets that look exactly like the original ones. By the way, real estate in the Chinese Hallstatt is more expensive than in the Austrian one.

8. The last free city

Slab City is a Californian town populated mainly by hobos, retirees, and those who have nowhere to go.

People here live in trailers and improvised shanties without running water, electricity, or addresses. Public utilities are also absent, as are taxes and rents. All of that sounds like a lot of inconvenience, but many of those who have been here say it's actually a very comfortable place. Slabbers call their town "the last free city in America."

7. A cave town

Matmata in southern Tunisia is a town where a lot of Berber underground dwellings still remain inhabited. In the 1970s, surface houses were built here, but many locals prefer to live in their traditional homes.

Star Wars fans will recognize this place as the home of Luke Skywalker.

6. A town under one roof

The entire city of Whittier, Alaska, is located in the 14-level building of a former military facility. It also hosts all the shops, a police station, a hospital, and a church.

The aim was to economize on heating since the weather here is cold and windy almost all year. The city's population numbers only 220 people.

5. The bluest town

The walls, doors, and even stairs of the hauntingly beautiful town of Chefchaouen in Morocco are all various shades of blue.

One theory is that they were painted by Jews who used to live here, blue being a sacred color for them. The Jews are now long gone, but the tradition remains.

4. An alien town

In 1947, a UFO crashed near the town of Roswell, New Mexico. What it really was is still a subject of debate, but Roswell became universally known as the Alien City.

This place holds alien-themed festivals, and even the local McDonald's is decorated with images of humanoids.

3. A town in the open sea

Neft Daşları, or "Oil Rocks," is an industrial town in Azerbaijan. It is located on metal platforms in the open sea, above an oil field.

The town has no resident population. About 2,000 people come to work here in shifts for a few months.

2. A town in a rock

The town of Setenil de las Bodegas in Spain attracts tourists from all over the world - probably because it's built into a huge basalt rock.

There are streets here where you can see rocks hanging overhead instead of the sky. It might seem that they are about to fall, but they have been holding for centuries.

1. A town where the dead outnumber the living

The town of Colma, California, is home to 17 cemeteries. The dead outnumber the living by a thousand to one!

It happened because the authorities once decided to relocate all the cemeteries from nearby San Francisco, and all the bodies were reinterred here.

The population of the town used to consist only of gravediggers, florists, and memorial makers, but in the 1980s, people of other professions also started to settle here. The town's motto today is "It's great to be alive in Colma!"

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Every city and town on Earth is unique, but some specimens are so extraordinary that it's hard to believe they really exist. Bright Side found the weirdest towns on our planet. Some of them are worthy of a long weekend visit. 12.

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Why do competitors open their stores next to one another? - Jac de Haan

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The study of the interactions between humans and their surroundings, and the observed effect of such interactions is called human geography. Studies related to this field attempt to establish the human or natural factors underlying the environmental changes occurring at that site. It also tries to understand the sociocultural evolution of humans based on the stimuli provided by their physical living conditions.

Till 1950, philosophers believed that human civilizations form and proliferate in certain parts of the world due to the direct influence of the natural physical environment found in those places. They put forth these beliefs in the form of theories which claimed that the environment had deterministic effects on the nature of human society and culture. The natural environment posed as a limiting factor for the development and progress of people inhabiting the particular area (environmental determinism). This provided a logical reasoning for diversity that was observed among the various civilizations and settlements of humans across the globe. These theories reinforced the idea that human-environment interactions were solely driven by the physical conditions, and that they were unidirectional.

However, as time elapsed, scholars and scientists began to question the validity of these theories, as they did not account for the impact of humans on the environment. They also did not take into account the essential factor of human ingenuity and advancement in technology. Due to the availability of advanced technology, humans could have a larger impact on the environment and easily adapt themselves, if not overcome, to the physical conditions. This contradicted the previous claim of the deterministic nature of the environment and in its stead proposed that while the environment did pose a few limiting factors to the prosperity of the inhabiting people, the people or society was also capable of having an impact on the surrounding and molding it as per their needs (environmental possibilism).

After 1950, both these sets of theories were revised and improved upon, as they proved inadequate to explain all the aspects related to human-environment interactions. A comprehensive comparison of these two concepts is given below.

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Environmental possibilism and determinism are theories, put forth in order to comprehend and understand the role played by the physical environmental conditions in the emergence and progress of any human culture or society in a particular location. Buzzle explores and lists out the differences between these two concepts.

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PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Weather Service National...

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US scientists have calculated the total amount of plastic ever made and put the number at 8.3 billion tonnes.

It is an astonishing mass of material that has essentially been created only in the last 65 years or so.

The 8.3 billion tonnes is as heavy as 25,000 Empire State Buildings in New York, or a billion elephants.

The great issue is that plastic items, like packaging, tend to be used for very short periods before being discarded.

More than 70% of the total production is now in waste streams, sent largely to landfill - although too much of it just litters the wider environment, including the oceans.

"We are rapidly heading towards 'Planet Plastic', and if we don't want to live on that kind of world then we may have to rethink how we use some materials, in particular plastic," Dr Roland Geyer told BBC News.

A paper authored by the industrial ecologist from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and colleagues appears in the journal Science Advances. It is described as the first truly global assessment of how much plastic has been manufactured, how the material in all its forms is used, and where it ends up. Here are some of its key numbers.

8,300 million tonnes of virgin plastics have been produced

Half of this material was made in just the past 13 years

About 30% of the historic production remains in use today

Of the discarded plastic, roughly 9% has been recycled

Some 12% has been incinerated, but 79% has gone to landfill

Shortest-use items are packaging, typically less than a year

Longest-use products are found in construction and machinery

Current trends point to 12 billion tonnes of waste by 2050

Recycling rates in 2014: Europe (30%), China (25%), US (9%)

There is no question that plastics are a wonder material. Their adaptability and durability have seen their production and use accelerate past most other manmade materials apart from steel, cement and brick.

From the start of mass-manufacturing in the 1950s, the polymers are now all around us - incorporated into everything from food wrapping and clothing, to aeroplane parts and flame retardants. But it is precisely plastics' amazing qualities that now present a burgeoning problem.

None of the commonly used plastics are biodegradable. The only way to permanently dispose of their waste is to destructively heat it - through a decomposition process known as pyrolysis or through simple incineration; although the latter is complicated by health and emissions concerns.

In the meantime, the waste mounts up. There is enough plastic debris out there right now, Geyer and colleagues say, to cover an entire country the size of Argentina. The team's hope is that their new analysis will give added impetus to the conversation about how best to deal with the plastics issue.

"Our mantra is you can't manage what you don't measure," Dr Geyer said. "So, our idea was to put the numbers out there without us telling the world what the world should be doing, but really just to start a real, concerted discussion."

The Inquiry: Time to ban the plastic bottle?

A mission to the Pacific plastic patch

Plastic heading for oceans quantified

Plastic-eating caterpillar 'may cut waste'

Recycling rates are increasing and novel chemistry has some biodegradable alternatives, but manufacturing new plastic is so cheap the virgin product is hard to dislodge.

The same team - which includes Jenna Jambeck from the University of Georgia and Kara Lavender Law from the Sea Education Association at Woods Hole - produced the seminal report in 2015 that quantified the total amount of plastic waste escaping to the oceans each year: eight million tonnes.

This particular waste flow is probably the one that has generated most concern of late because of the clear evidence now that some of this discarded material is getting into the food chain as fish and other marine creatures ingest small polymer fragments.

Dr Erik van Sebille from Utrecht University in the Netherlands is an oceanographer who tracks plastics in our seas. Of the new report, he said: "We're facing a tsunami of plastic waste, and we need to deal with that.

"The global waste industry needs to get its act together and make sure that the ever-increasing amounts of plastic waste generated don't end up in the environment.

"We need a radical shift in how we deal with plastic waste. On current trends, it will take until 2060 before more plastic gets recycled than landfilled and lost to the environment. That clearly is too slow; we can't wait that long," he told BBC News.

And Richard Thompson, professor of marine biology at Plymouth University, UK, commented: "If plastic products are designed with recyclability in mind they can be recycled many times over. Some would say a bottle could be recycled 20 times. That's a substantial reduction in waste. At the moment poor design limits us."

To illustrate that point, Dr Geyer said: "The holy grail of recycling is to keep material in use and in the loop for ever if you can. But it turns out in our study that actually 90% of that material that did get recycled - which I think we calculated was 600 million tonnes - only got recycled once."

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

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Earth is becoming 'Planet Plastic' - BBC News

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US scientists have calculated the total amount of plastic ever made and put the number at 8.3 billion tonnes. It is an astonishing mass of material that has essentially been created only in the last 65 years or so. The 8.3 billion tonnes is as heavy as 25,000 Empire State Buildings in New York, or a billion elephants.

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Gulf of Maine Research Institute: Space Available: Map Projections

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Explains the importance of a turtle's plastron & carapace, interesting turtle-shell related facts.

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Maps That Prove You Don't Really Know Earth

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AP Human Geography: The Exam | AP Central - The College Board

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Explore timing and format for the AP Human Geography Exam, and review sample questions, scoring guidelines, and sample student responses.

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The stigma surrounding sex education and family planning in the Philippines is such that 65% of women do not use contraceptives. Five years ago, Congress passed a reproductive health law guaranteeing universal access to family planning, but misinformation remains rife. We follow three campaigners working in communities to challenge the myths, and help girls and women plan their families and take control of their future

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At 11 years old, they're getting pregnant': the women smashing Catholic taboos in the Philippines

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The stigma surrounding sex education and family planning in the Philippines is such that 65% of women do not use contraceptives. Five years ago, Congress passed a reproductive health law guaranteeing universal access to family planning, but misinformation remains rife.

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Why Early Globalization Matters: Crash Course Big History #206

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At a time when the world recognises the people at the top of the rich list, maybe our attention should be at the people at the other end. There are millions of faces and stories at the bottom of the list, here are 100 of them. Let's see them, hear them and help them.

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ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

This is the day in 1954 that the Supreme Court issued its famous ruling desegregating schools, Brown versus Board of Education. Today, schools remain largely segregated, and the author Richard Rothstein argues that's because housing is segregated. Even today, black and white people generally don't live in the same neighborhoods. Rothstein's new book is called "The Color Of Law: A Forgotten History Of How Our Government Segregated America." Welcome to the program.

RICHARD ROTHSTEIN: Thank you very much.

SHAPIRO: So the basic argument of your book is that while racist individuals might have contributed to housing segregation in specific cases, there was an overwhelming amount of government policy at the state, local and federal level that explicitly forced black people to live in different places from white people. And I have to admit that reading this book, the geographic scope, the longevity, the sheer creativity of these policies really took me by surprise.

ROTHSTEIN: It takes many people by surprise. This whole history has been forgotten. It used to be well-known. There was nothing hidden about it. The federal government pursued two important policies in the mid-20th century that segregated metropolitan areas. One was the first civilian public housing program which frequently demolished integrated neighborhoods in order to create segregated public housing.

The second program that the federal government pursued was to subsidize the development of suburbs on a condition that they be only sold to white families and that the homes in those suburbs had deeds that prohibited resale to African-Americans. These two policies worked together to segregate metropolitan areas in ways that they otherwise would never have been segregated.

SHAPIRO: The book gives so many different examples of how this played out, and one of the worst offenders is the FHA, the Federal Housing Administration. Explain why this one government agency has so much influence over where people live and what the FHA did to prevent black people from buying and owning homes.

ROTHSTEIN: Perhaps the best-known example is Levittown, just east of New York City, but there were subdivisions like this all over the country. What the federal government did in the 1940s and '50s, it came to a developer like Levitt, the Levitt family that built Levittown. That family could never have assembled the capital necessary to build 17,000 homes on its own.

What the federal government did, the FHA, is guarantee bank loans for construction and development to Levittown on condition that no homes be sold to African-Americans and that every home have a clause in its deed prohibiting resale to African-Americans.

SHAPIRO: The FHA policies here were not merely incentives or encouragements. You tell the story of progressive, idealistic developers who wanted to build integrated housing communities and were absolutely unable to do so. And we're not just talking about in the Deep South here.

ROTHSTEIN: We're not talking about the Deep South at all. We're talking of the North, the West, the Midwest. The great American novelist Wallace Stegner got a job right after World War II at Stanford University. There was an enormous civilian housing shortage. He joined and helped to lead a co-operative of 400 families who bought a large tract outside Stanford University where they wanted to build single-family homes.

The FHA refused to insure those homes refused to provide the capital for construction because the 400-member co-operative had three African-American members. The co-operative tried to resist the FHA's demand, promising the FHA that the number of African-Americans in the co-operative wouldn't exceed the percentage of African-Americans in California as a whole.

The FHA refused that compromise. Finally, the co-operative had to disband because they couldn't go ahead with the project. They sold the land to a private developer, who with FHA guarantees built single family homes with racially exclusive deeds.

SHAPIRO: Your book also explains one way in which black neighborhoods became undesirable. You described zoning laws in which black parts of town were officially zoned for industrial plants, waste disposal, other things that we would consider a blight. And meanwhile, those businesses were explicitly kept out of white neighborhoods in the same cities.

ROTHSTEIN: Yes, there are examples in St. Louis and Los Angeles, neighborhoods that once they had African-American residents were rezoned to permit industrial and toxic uses. Those rezonings turned those neighborhoods into slums. White families outside those neighborhoods looked upon the neighborhoods, saw slums and concluded that African-Americans were slum dwellers and that if they moved into their neighborhoods, into the white neighborhoods, they would bring those conditions with them.

SHAPIRO: Why were all of these policies put in place? Was it just overt racism on the part of policy makers? What actually was the motivation?

ROTHSTEIN: Well, that's very hard to know. And one thing that should be remembered is that it can't be blamed simply on the standards of the time because there were people who dissented. People did know better, but they had other priorities. And they caved in to private prejudice and some of their constituents. They themselves were prejudiced. It was assumptions about racial superiority, but it also was cowardice in not confronting popular views about racial superiority.

SHAPIRO: So as you lay out this history, these segregationist, discriminatory, harmful structures were built over the first half of the 20th century, and then Congress passes the Fair Housing Act in 1968 which says many of those practices were illegal, unconstitutional and they stop - for the most part, the worst ones. Why doesn't that solve the problem?

ROTHSTEIN: Well, because all the Fair Housing Act could do was prohibit future discrimination. But by the time the Fair Housing Act was passed, the patterns of segregation had been firmly established. Simply passing a Fair Housing Act did not enable African-Americans who were previously living in urban areas to relocate to the suburbs from which they'd been excluded. I gave the example earlier of Levittown in 1947-48, when those homes were built with a racially restrictive policy.

Those homes sold for about $8,000 a piece or $100,000 more or less in today's currency. African-Americans, working class families could have bought those homes. Today though, those homes sell for $300,000, $400,000. They're no longer affordable to working class families. In the ensuing two generations, the white families who moved into those homes gained that $200,000, $300,000 in equity appreciation.

African-Americans living in rented apartments, prohibited from moving to the suburbs, gained none of that appreciation. The result is that today nationwide, African-American incomes on average are about 60 percent of white incomes, but African-American wealth is about 5 to 7 percent of white wealth. That enormous difference is almost entirely attributable to unconstitutional federal housing policy practiced in the mid-20th century.

SHAPIRO: The current secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson, has criticized what he calls social engineering programs that are meant to help black homeowners or renters. It sounds as though you're arguing that the first two-thirds of the 20th century were social engineering to harm black people in homeownership and that maybe it will require some social engineering to undo that harm.

ROTHSTEIN: Yes. What I tell Secretary Carson is that the reforms that he's criticizing are an attempt to undo social engineering. Clearly he's right that when you try to engineer social policy the way that is necessary to reverse segregation, there are some unintended consequences.

There will be prices to be paid, but those prices are small compared to the costs of the social engineering that was conducted in the first two-thirds of the 20th century by the federal government. And that's a price that we have to pay to rectify a serious constitutional violation.

SHAPIRO: Richard Rothstein is with the Economic Policy Institute and the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. His new book is "The Color Of Law: A Forgotten History Of How Our Government Segregated America." Thank you so much.

ROTHSTEIN: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF PERPETUAL GROOVE'S "TEAKWOOD BETZ")

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'The Color Of Law' Details How U.S. Housing Policies Created Segregation

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NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with author Richard Rothstein about his new book, The Color of Law, which details how federal housing policies in the 1940s and '50s mandated segregation and undermined the ability of black families to own homes and build wealth.

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Which country is set to replace the US as the world's third most populous?

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Carl Sagan - How We Know The Earth Is Round

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The legendary Carl Sagan brilliantly demonstrates how Eratosthenes proved a spherical Earth. Hard to believe that some people still deny this 2200 years later.

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Building the Troost Wall: Structural Racism in Kansas City

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For Challenge 6, "Get Uncomfortable," I decided to go to KC and eat at a fancy place on the Plaza (uncomfortable for me) and then walk with Nathaniel Bozarth to a place on Prospect Ave for a second meal (even more uncomfortable).

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The history of map-making is full of educated guesses. As late as the 19th century Africa and Australia contained vast, unexplored interiors. Cartographers often used experience and logic to infer the lay of the land. Unsurprisingly, they were frequently wrong. Since antiquity, for example, the Nile had been known to be a river of enormous length, and because rivers often emanated from mountains it was thought there must be a large mountain range at its source. The Mountains of the Moon appeared on maps of Africa up until the 1800s, when explorers finally confirmed there was no such thing.

In his new book, "The Phantom Atlas", Edward Brooke-Hitching gathers a rich selection of these mistakes. They range from honest errors to the mythical or mendacious. One map from 1766 shows Patagonia, and includes pictures of heavily bearded giants walking around with bows and arrows. Another of Java la Grande, a landmass in the southern hemisphere first reported by Marco Polo, depicts the locals riding on horseback and harvesting coconuts while fantastical sea creatures swim offshore.

The book shows how lively minds made use of limited knowledge, but also how rumour, guesswork and downright lies can persist in the scholarly imagination. In his introduction, Brooke-Hitching writes about a crew of cartographers who scoured the Gulf of Mexico for an island which first appeared on a map in the early 16th century, and had been included on navigational charts ever since. Their unsuccessful expedition didn't take place until June 2009. But as Brooke-Hitching says, like all the places in this book it was, for a time, real: it existed on the printed page.

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The history of map-making is full of educated guesses. As late as the 19th century Africa and Australia contained vast, unexplored interiors. Cartographers often used experience and logic to infer the lay of the land. Unsurprisingly, they were frequently wrong.

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national council for geographic education

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national conference on geography education

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The Geography Teacher | National Council for Geographic Education

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The National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE) is a non-profit organization, chartered in 1915 to enhance the status and quality of geography teaching and learning. NCGE supports geography teaching at all levels-from Kindergarten through University. Our members include U.S. and International teachers, professors, students, businesses, and others who support geographic education.

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Annegburg

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Resource: The Power of Place: Geography for the 21st Century

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Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum