Night With A Geographer: Geography: A New Way of Seeing the World – Joseph Kerski, Ph.D. jkerski@esri.com – http://www.josephkerski.com Twitter @josephkerski
Thank you for allowing me to speak with you about this important topic. We will also have fun in doing so! My goals are to get you thinking about (1) “what is geography, really”, (2) “why geography matters—how is it a new way of seeing the world?” (3) “how can I use these geographic tools to see the world in a new way?” (4) “What are the implications for ignoring geography—it would be like sleepwalking into the future!” – and (5) what the future will hold in terms of geographic technology. But we have 4 hours together, right?…[[grin]]
I wonder what your friends said when you told them you were attending A Night With A Geographer. “That sounds like the most fun I’ve had since I had my appendix removed!?” “Golly, surely there’s an old episode of “The Partridge Family” on that night!” “Sounds like a real yawn fest.. maybe I can sleep in those cushy chairs at the Fort Collins Museum and they’ll play some soothing music by the Moody Blues…” [[sing]]
… Because, folks, for good or bad, our perception of what this series’ mission of “Night with a Geographer” is shaped by our own experiences with geography courses that we have taken, or our friends, relatives, or kids have taken. It is also shaped by the popular media’s use and misuse of geography. It is also shaped by things like the National Geographic Bee. Again, for good and bad.
Let’s cut right to the facts: Geography: Geo=Earth. Our planet. A pretty remarkable thing when one considers the vastness of space. Graph=To Describe, to write about.
Whoa, Joseph! Isn’t everything already mapped? Don’t we already know everything about our own planet? Sigh: These are questions we get all the time. Why is geography relevant to the 21st Century?
Name some areas of concern in your community, in Colorado, in the USA, and in the world. Energy, water quality and quantity, healthy economies, biodiversity loss, crime, human health, natural hazards, political instability, climate, urbanization, land use, … all of the key issues of our time have a geographic component and can be better understood and solved with the help of geographic content knowledge, skills, and the spatial perspective.
Yet for all of this relevance, Geography has deep roots in the past, too. In fact, Geography is likely the oldest of ALL disciplines, tracing its roots back to Eratosthenes to 250 BC. Yes, that same fellow who measured the Earth’s circumference by calculating the difference in the angle of shadow at the Summer Solstice between his well at the Library in Alexandria versus that of Cyene, and then the distance between them. Not an easy matter in the days before GPS. He calculated it to be 25,000 miles. The Equatorial Circumference is actually 24,901 miles. Not bad!
Had his measurement been used by everyone who came after him, Columbus would have known it was REALLY far to get to Asia traveling west from Spain. But history sometimes vindicates those who were right. Remember William Smith? The first man who had the vision of the stratigraphic sequence of rock layers, and after tramping around England and Wales for 20 years, made what author Simon Winchester dubbed “The Map that Changed the World”. All the while the London Geological Society pooh-poohed him, saying “He’s not a learned man…”
Ditto for William Harrison, who created an accurate clock so that ships at sea could determine their longitude and avoid crashing on reefs and rocks, as detailed in the book and movie “Longitude.” He rather put those astronomers at the Royal Observatory who were seeking a celestial solution in their place, don’t you think?
Fast forward to Decca Records, 1962: After a certain quartet finished their audition: “Guitar groups are on their way out. Plus, whoever heard of a group from Liverpool? All the good bands are from London. Thanks but no thanks.”
This is not entirely a digression. Geography suffers from the same lack of recognition — about what it is, and its contribution to 21st Century society. One goal tonight is — to explain to those who are still hoping for the Moody Blues music, what it actually is. Another goal tonight is to show how relevant it is to 21st Century decision making, making the case that to ignore geography is like “Sleepwalking into the future”.
Geography is all about these sorts of things: The principal exports of Costa Rica are electronic components, medical equipment, bananas, coffee, and ornamental plants.
The principal ocean currents are the Gulf Stream, the California, the North & South Equatorial, and the Antarctic Circumpolar.
The capital city of Australia is Canberra, the capital of Argentina is Buenos Aires, and the capital of Andorra is .. well, Andorra la Vella, of course.
This is the essence of geography. NOT! If not, why not? I submit to you that geography is a three legged stool: Yes, content is important. Content includes some facts, yes, but content does not equal facts. I get so tired of reading these reports about students not being able to do x or y, such as when it was recently reported that university students in Canada could not locate the Atlantic Ocean on a world map. The real tragedy is not that students don’t know where the Atlantic Ocean is, but how oceans function, why oceans are important to the health and climate of the planet, how oceans support economies, about coral reefs and other ocean life, and about threats to the ocean. This is REAL geoliteracy, not locating the oceans on a map, though that does have some value. Furthermore, as a geographer, I don’t care that much what the average income in 2013 was in Colorado. The average doesn’t MEAN much. Mean – pun! Rather, I want to know how the pattern varied across the state. Who would ever claim that to learn chemistry is to memorize all elements, compounds, and reactions? Or that by learning every major family/genus/species, you’ve learned biology? The content of geography is vast—the world and everything in it. But beyond the world, too, things like Earth-Sun relationships and the magnetic sphere. Fundamental to learning the content of geography is to understand systems. Our world is complex. We have climate systems, river systems, ecosystems, agricultural systems, urban systems. These are multi-scale and rapidly changing. To understand these systems, it is essential to understand them spatially – yes, yes, their geographic location, but also their history, and their context—how they fit in and work well – or do not work well – with intersecting systems.
The second leg of the stool in my view that to learn geography, one must practice geography. This shouldn’t be surprising. Imagine if we trained surgeons: Memorize all the bones, organs, muscles of the human body, and this list of surgical equipment. End of story. Yikes! Geography contains an important set of skills. Many of the skills require the use of tools. Every discipline has a skill set, and in geography, these skills and tools have 2 characteristics:
(1) in demand. In 2004, the US Department of Labor identified 3 rapidly growing or hot fields for the 21st Century: Nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, and geotechnologies. The geotechnologies include the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing, Global Positioning Systems, Location Analytics, dynamic web mapping—to make sense of the vast amount of spatial data that is coming at us from satellites, maps, and even the devices that we carry around with us – more about that later. Other skills include understanding that scale matters, being able to analyze patterns, linkages, and trends, over time, and over space.
(2) These tools, over the past decade, have become tools that the general public is now using. I remember coming home from the USGS in 1989: I got to examine aerial photographs all day at work! In the brief time we have been together, how many satellite images have been pulled up in browsers on laptops, tablets, and smartphones? How many times has someone geocoded something in these last few minutes? Tens of thousands? Millions? The spreading of tools to the general public has enormous implications for geography education. It presents ongoing challenges for its perception as a discipline – oh, we don’t need geography – I can pull up a Google map of the Missouri River and look at it! But let’s focus on the opportunity it provides: It means that an educator can engage his or her students in deep and rich inquiry with software-as-a-service dynamic and live web maps. In the past, doing geographic analysis through geotechnologies required the installation of GIS software and a commitment to a long learning curve. A few of these “early adopters” (Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation) educators had the vision and did just that. Please hear me on this: There are many people today who can make a map showing where they are and to find how to get from Point A to Point B. There are few people who can make smart maps to answer questions and solve problems. And it is the latter that I am most interested in fostering, throughout society.
I have several roles and a varied journey. I have served in 3 federal agencies – NOAA, US Census Bureau, and USGS. I teach in a variety of F2F and online learning institutions such as Elmhurst College, the Sloan Consortium, eNet Colorado, and the University of Denver. I also serve as education manager at Esri. What’s an Esri? Environmental Systems Research Institute, headquartered in Redlands California but with offices worldwide. Why worldwide? Because as our world grows more complex, GIS is in enormous demand; these tools are critically needed for everyday decision making in Fort Collins planning and zoning, state of Colorado DNR, the US EPA, the United Nations Environment Programme, Ace Hardware, Panera Bread, The Nature Conservancy, and many more private, government, and nonprofit organizations.
But I say to you educators here tonight, and those who work with educators, that with a web browser and a decent internet connection, you can use these easy-to-use tools in powerful ways. Now, desktop GIS and remote sensing software is still around, and it is easier to use than in the past, and more powerful. For those who want deeper/richer, it is a viable option and will remain so. But more and more of its capabilities are rapidly evolving into the GIS cloud. Remember the Rolling Stones’ “Get off my cloud” I am saying “get ON the cloud.” What can we do with these tools? In a moment. We need to talk about the third and final leg of the geography stool first, because it is key to the effective use of geotechnology skills and tools.
The third and final leg of the geography stool is the geographic perspective. Geography is a way of looking at the world—a lens, if you will, of how the world works. I know that those in chemistry see the world as held together with chemical bonds that govern everything around us. So to with geographers—we see the world in a spatial context. Why do old motels-turned into apartment complexes and used car lots congregate near this particular road in Denver? Because it was the primary route leading out of Denver before interstate highways existed! Why do birth rates and life expectancies seem to vary in opposite directions? Why does soil moisture, plant species, and wildfire occurrence vary between north-facing slopes and south-facing slopes, particularly in semiarid regions? Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near? Wait—that was the Carpenters.
To study the world through geography, therefore, requires all 3 legs of the stool – developing an understanding of content, learning the skills in using geographic tools, and nurturing the geographic perspective. The National Academy of Sciences published a report in 2006 entitled Learning to Think Spatially, where they mentioned that developing the spatial perspective was to develop the “habit of mind”. I like that phrase because it implies that these things aren’t to be quickly memorized—it will take time—and the world we live in and the tools we use change rapidly—so it is a process of lifelong learning.
Quiz time! Let us go on a journey (and I don’t mean the 80s band) where we use all 3 of these legs of the stool that I have identified. We will visit places around our wonderful planet. At each place I provide 3 choices from which you can choose. One of these choices is the correct answer of where is the feature, landform, or phenomenon.
North is at the top of each image. The images will be at different scales.
Water has shaped our world in many ways: River meanders, waterfalls, oceans, brings life to our world, and beauty. Geographers study water at the macro scale—the effect of storms on watersheds; the effect of ocean currents on past, present, and future climate, for example. They also study water at a micro-scale: Water chemistry off the Great Barrier Reef, or how to best advise a municipality on acquisition and storage to ensure its future water supply. Victoria Falls, Angel Falls, or Niagara Falls?
Angel Falls in Venezuela is the world’s highest waterfall at 807 meters, but is much narrower than this waterfall; plus it is on one mountain, which is not visible here. Niagara Falls is surrounded by commercial development, and the vegetation is different from that shown here. Victoria Falls is hence the right answer. The Zambezi River flows from north to south in this image into the gorge, forming the boundary between Zambia to the east and Zimbabwe to the west.
Our world is filled with Mountains—some fairly new, some ancient. Some that are rising, some rapidly eroding. Some sedimentary, some volcanic. Geographers study the effect of mountains on ecoregions, on settlement past and present, advise on volcanic activity on public safety, and more. Aconcagua, Argentina, Arenal Costa Rica, or Kilimanjaro, Tanzania?
Aconcagua Argentina is the highest in South America, not far from the border with Chile, and is much higher, is snowcapped, and its surrounding terrain is much more rugged than is evident here. Kilimanjaro Tanzania is a good guess given the tropical vegetation, but it is much higher, is snowcapped, at least for now, though that is changing. Arenal Costa Rica is thus the correct answer. The tropical vegetation, tropical clouds, and nearby lake are major clues. Arenal is a young volcano and its activity prohibits vegetation from taking root along its sides.
Cities have always been situated near water sources: Oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers. After centuries of use and abuse, these rivers have been rediscovered over the past century as one of the natural amenities of cities, giving cities character and its residents a ribbon of sanctuary in their 21st Century complexity: London, Paris, or Hamburg?
The pattern of the Thames in London does not exhibit this long loop. Hamburg is near a wide waterway with access to the North Sea, which is not evident here, and its street pattern is different. Thus, Paris is the correct choice. The Seine loops though the city in this fashion with the street pattern evident here.
Glaciers, too, have sculpted our world on a massive scale, leaving imprints past and present, and what happens to them in the future will affect us all: Norway, New Zealand, or Iceland?
Iceland: Too much vegetation exists here for this to be Iceland. The orientation of the coast makes Norway a good guess, but close examination reveals the glaciers on the south slopes, and not the north slopes—a clue that this is in the southern hemisphere. Hence, New Zealand is the correct choice—the fjordland on the South Island.
On the first part of the journey [[sing]]… Deserts, cold and hot, and temperate, are common on Earth. The Gobi, Arabian, or the Sahara?
The Arabian Desert is a good guess, but the high mountains on the north side make that guess invalid. The Sahara is also invalidated by the fact that it is larger than this, and the landforms on the north and south do not match. The Gobi is thus the correct choice, given the sands and landforms of western China.
Humans have modified our planet for a myriad of reasons, and some of the largest modifications have been canals and the associated infrastructure. Is this the Suez, the Erie, or the Panama Canal?
Erie Canal: Most of the Erie Canal is no longer visible, because most of it is no longer in use, and is older and smaller, built before supertankers and container ships arrived on the scene. In addition, the New York glacial lakes and vegetation is much different than that depicted here. [[The NY State Thruway is closed, man! …]] The tropical vegetation in Central America negates the Panama Canal as a choice. Thus, the Suez Canal is correct. The north-south orientation of the canal and the desert landscape are the primary clues.
Some human modification has come at a great cost to the natural environment. Are these human imprints in the rainforests of Indonesia, Brazil, or Papua New Guinea?
Indonesia’s rugged terrain negates this choice, and its logging roads exhibit a different pattern, and the same is true with Papua New Guinea. Thus, Brazil is the correct choice. This is in the relatively flat region of Rondonia, and the major clue is the fishbone pattern of roads for agriculture and logging.
Natural processes occur without human influence, and also can be exacerbated by human land use practice. Are these eroded gullies in Flin Flon, Manitoba, Lakewood, Colorado, or Tucumcari, New Mexico?
Flin Flon, one of my favorite place names (toponyms), is in an area of the boreal forest marked by glacial lakes, neither of which is evident here. Tucumcari is semiarid which this area appears to be, but it is flatter and drier. Thus, Lakewood, Colorado, is the correct choice. The Green Mountain conglomerate has been eroded by gullies along its flanks.
In each image, you were thinking spatially, weren’t you? You may not have thought about it but you were drawing on patterns and relationships, content knowledge too.
But could you have also been thinking, “Wait! Isn’t Joseph reducing geography to what he was just preaching against; i.e. place name geography”? Rest assured that I am not. I gave you the quiz because it is fun and we like challenges. But I also wanted to demonstrate how spatial thinking is important even to interpret maps and imagery.
Also, through these scenes, it is evident that scale matters, whether the phenomenon is Palau or Papua New Guinea (“Papua was a …”).
It is also evident that humans have impacted the planet in nearly every conceivable location and scale, on a micro and macro level. Both past, and present. But our sheer numbers and our technologies have allowed us accomplish enormous changes.
It is ALSO evident that geotechnologies are powerful tools with which to teach and learn. I promised this earlier and now is the time to deliver. I’ll limit it to 6 fabulous things you can do. I wish I could get excited about this subject!
#1 ArcGIS Online is a web based mapping platform. It’s not “where is Panera Bread”? Pull up the following 2 map layers: ecoregions of the world, and population density. Examine the potential impact on ecoregions based on population density. Analyze the effect of elevation on ecoregions.
#2 The Urban Observatory is a set of variables and visualizations that let you dynamically compare population density, housing type, zoning, and much more for major cities of the world. Based on ArcGIS online web maps and updated with numerous variables.
#3 Worldmapper is a set of over 700 cartograms—distortions of size of country, in this case, based on the value of a variable. Worldmapper let you examine everything from high tech exports to access to clean water, by country. All data tables are able to be exported as Excel tables for further analysis.
#4 Add population and demographic variables such as median age, diversity index, median home value, and lifestyle (Consumer expenditures and demographic components). How do these variables change over time? How to they vary by state, county, census tract, and block group [[list examples]]
#5 Place some photos on Flickr, Picasaweb/Google, PhotoBucket, or other photo sharing site. Put some videos on YouTube. Create a map with a few pushpins. Point to your photos and videos and you have an instant story map—on tsunamis of the Pacific Basin, on the 2013 floods in Colorado, on historical homes in Fort Collins, on anything. Makes a wonderful assessment tool in the classroom, too.
#6 Go out into the field with a probe or a GPS. Don’t have? Take a smartphone then! Collect tracks and waypoints. Gather data on litter, tree height and species, water quality, noise, whatever. Bring those data tables, tracks, and photographs into ArcGIS Online. Save and share your map. How about if every student does this at the same time? Now you have a crowdsourced map. Citizen science in action!
How can you get started? Colorado has a K-12 Esri ArcGIS statewide license! Sweet. Contact me or eNet Colorado to tap into the wonders therein.
Get my business card – I have some resources I can share with you. I write for 3 blogs weekly; I also have 1,600 videos on my YouTube Channel. Quiz tomorrow! More importantly, there are curricular resources, PD available, data, maps, networks of good folks, – my goal is to help you succeed in using geotechnologies in education.
What skills are important to develop in geography education? I have selected 5 for you to consider. # 1. Curiosity. Tenacity is necessary. The geographic inquiry process.
Content AND context are both important. Context: Seeing the whole. Content: Location (where is it, site vs. situation), and place – what is it like?
2. Ability to work with data. If you thought we had a lot of data in the past, just wait… citizen science, citizens as sensors. Develop critical thinking skills, know how to find, assess, and manage data.
Geographic knowledge is the next part of Big Data. You’ve heard of Big Data? Things like – the daily approach paths of every airplane in the world; the operations and time of each traffic light in a metropolitan area, the water quality variables recorded by of tens of thousands of stream gaging stations around the USA. These all have geographic components, and the geographic will figure prominently in the type of data that is being gathered, mapped, and analyzed. Indeed, geotechnologies (GIS) is increasingly acting as the “nervous system” of the planet, helping monitor it so people can make decisions about it.
But even beyond this is something equally intriguing, and can affect us even more personally than the decisions our city or county or country makes. And that is the Internet of Things – the remote control of nearly every object on Earth.
Most of us don’t recognize just how far this will go- from gadgets that track our every move to a world that predicts our actions and emotions. We already have components of it – how many of you have a smartphone? Your smartphone gathers data about traffic without you even knowing about it, and sends it to Google, resulting in real time traffic information that is used by everyone.
An invisible button is an area in space that is clicked when a person or object moves into that physical space. For example, to turn on or off lights in a room. When invisible buttons can be modified by variables such as time of day, our previous actions, our calendar, the actions of others. Smart glasses, health monitors, activity monitors that we wear, will transform our world.
They could warm up your house, start a pot of coffee, alert security when certain people or a certain number of people enter a public plaza… hmm! Well, it is already happening: Ads that are tailored to your personal preferences in postal mail – AND online! [[I remember first few times I saw some Esri ads on a non GIS page I was browsing. Long gone are the days of just a few types of bread – remember supermarkets of the 1970s?]]. New Google maps – customized. This is all part of: Anticipatory computing. So, geography is not such a “new” way of seeing the world to geographers anyway– it has deep roots in the past. What is new are the new tools and methods we are using, the new things we are seeing through those tools and methods, and the number of people that are seeing the world in new ways—those are the things that are really “new”.
As with some of the innovations we’ve seen in the past decade, to tap into the possibilities here could mean that you give up some personal autonomy and privacy … perhaps more than some will be comfortable with. Remember the first days of the supermarket discount cards? You gave your purchasing history in return for discounts.
I believe and I advocate that geographers contribute to the discussions about privacy as location information becomes increasingly valued and sought after.
3. Understanding geographic foundations. Map projections, datums, topology, spatial data models, classification, spatial statistics, geoprocessing methods, cartography, field methods. Learn Programming!
4. Adaptability. Changing earth, technology, audience. Lifelong learning: Embrace change.
5. Effective communications. One of the new tools is story maps. Maps tell stories – who knew! But to use technologies like storymaps, you need to know how to define your audience, to construct your argument, to lead and not mislead… Mislead? How to Lie with Maps – Monmonier.
Geospatial Technology Competency Model provides a good framework for our discussion here. Coming out of Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, … [[discuss]]
Tell your colleagues and students: There are good opportunities to use geographic skills and content knowledge in the workforce. Location Analytics alone will provide MANY opportunities for those with geographic training. Admittedly, still too common, an organization does not realize they need geography. But you can go to the organization that fits your own personal ethos and say, “here is how my geographic skills can help you become more efficient, save money, be more successful, and fulfill your mission.” Be bold.
Now more than ever, we need people who think broadly and who understand systems, connections, patterns, and root causes, how to think in whole systems, how to find connections, how to ask big questions, and how to separate the trivial from the important. –David W. Orr, Earth in Mind. On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect.
Think of the consequences if future societies do not understand the value of thinking spatially. We really would be sleepwalking into the future.
But I know you folks here – under this dome – will do everything in your power to make sure that we have a spatially enabled, enriched, vibrant, healthy, and exciting future. And rest assured that I will do the same. Thank you.