Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks is Ken's followup to his 2005 best-seller Brainiac. Much as his previous book Braniac followed the competitive world of game shows. Jennings offered that same behind the scenes look into the world of geography buffs and map geeks alike. In a world where geography only makes the headlines or points of coffee house discussion if a new study is released about how terrible students are at it, however, amazingly there ARE still students and people alike that simply love it and are thriving in their point of interest. Some stare at maps endlessly searching for things that most people would never even care to look at such as what makes this state similar with this state or why is the population more or less here. Some long to find and view the rarest maps available; others embrace the future by participating in an activity known as geocaching. Geocaching is when the participant visits special areas with “treasures” hidden using their GPS devices and smartphones. Some people even draw thousands of their own imaginary maps, highlighting details in worlds and countries they long to visit.
Ken Jennings was a map nerd from a young age himself, you will not be surprised to learn, even sleeping with an old creased atlas at the side of his pillow, most kids his age were cuddling with a trusted blanket- Jennings was not. As he travels the world meeting people of kindred spirits--map librarians, publishers, geocachers, and the engineers behind google maps. Now that technology and geographic unknowing is increasingly insulting us from the space and land around us, we are going to be needing these people more than ever. Mapheads are the ones who always know exactly where they are and...
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...ies that run the streets of Hollywood, or brilliant natural perfections like The Degree Confluence Project.
Now that we’ve made our way through the journey of Ken Jennings’ incredible book I feel as if it’s important for me to try to sway you to become more involved in geography. It’s a truly fascinating subject and can take you places you never thought you could ever visit. If you don’t want to leave your home, at least buy an atlas, map, or visit Google Earth. You never know what you could discover in your journey. If you don’t think maps or an atlas is your thing, you never know if you never try. Jennings created a journey, for me I would have never cared to take had it not been assigned as a college class assignment, but now I’m so glad I did. Jennings shined a different light on geocaching, and map hunting. He made it fun, interesting, and overall thrilling.
James Howard Kunstler begins his work, “The Geography of Nowhere,” at a top speed and continues from there. He starts chapter one, Scary Place, by describing the story of Judge Doom from “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”, which is the fictional character that is supposedly responsible for Los Angeles becoming taken over by the freeways. He then continues quoting Lewis Mumford, who was basically the dean of American urban academics in the beginning of the 1900s. He gloomily predicted, would completely demoralize mankind and lead to the nuclear holocaust (p. 10).
“Longitudes and Attitudes”, written by Thomas Friedman, is a collection of columns, broken by September 11th’s great catastrophe and including material from his diary. The book displays his outstanding strengths as a commentator along with a few weaknesses.
...scovered many types of treasures that day. The day read like a story from the book The Joy of Geocaching that I had started to read the night before. I must agree with the author’s statement that “Geocaching is a healthy and inexpensive way to get the whole family outdoors, energized, and pulling together for a common goal.(Gillen 9)” Judging from the good time our family had it will be something we continue to do in the future.
This book revolves around a more negative aspect of wanderlust. Grann writes about explorers’ obsessions, in this case with the Amazon Forest and hidden cities filled with gold and advanced civilizations.
I believe that geography is a significant subject in the primary national curriculum because it supports children to develop an understanding of the places in the world and the diverse range of people who live in it. For me, this is an important aspect to learning because it enables children to be globally aware. According to the DFES (Great Britain. Department for Education and Skills, 2005a) education plays a vital role in helping children to recognise their contribution and responsibilities as citizens of the global community and equips them with skills to make informed decisions and take responsible actions. In a recent geography seminar, I collaboratively planned a lesson for KS2, involving children taking a visit to Seaton, a local beach in Cornwall to compare and contrast the area through photographs after recent storm damage. The Royal Geographical Society (2014) suggests through the use of enquiry-based fieldwork, children can gain first hand experiences of physical processes. Having planned this activity I now realise that the use of first hand experiences will support children to develop attitudes and opinions. This is important because in my future geography teaching I can challenge children by using t...
The main ideas presented in “Why Geography Matters…More Than Ever!” revolve around what exactly geography is, and the implications of the subject. Geography is the study of the physical world and human actions, it also covers the affects of human actions. Geography influences a plethora of topics and geographers do research on numerous subjects. “Geographers do research on glaciations and coastlines, on desert dunes and limestone caves, on weather and climate, even on plants and animals”(7). The author stresses how underrated geography is the present times, and how the introduction of social studies have doomed the subject of geography for future generations. In a section detailing the teaching of geography
The Five Themes of Geography are: Location – Absolute points on a map or grid or Relative to where something may be; Place – The physical and/or human characteristics of a locations; Human/Environment Interactions – How humans have impacted the landscape or environment; Relationship between places Movement – How humans interact on the earth (i.e. how they communicate over distance (short or long)) and Regions – a unit of space that has commonalities defined by physical, human and environmental geography. The Explorers of the New World may have not known what the Five Themes of Geography were but they quickly learned. Of the five themes the ones that they all took advantage of was the physical Location and Place as they learned to navigate to and from as well as through their new environments. Over Time the explorers began to discover the relationships within their environments and original occupants of the lands as well as the regions in which they now occupied.
If I could spend a day learning about one topic, it would be geolocation. I became interest in geolocation when it came up as one of the applications for conics in my Precalculus class. When I realized that conics could be used for geolocation I went home to my father and asked him to teach me more about it. Eventually, I got him to come into o...
As applications of geospatial technologies continuously break the disciplinary barrier, the need for books on these technologies to reach diverse audiences is greater than ever. The challenge, however, is to write a book on this complicated subject that incorporates the knowledge of multiple disciplines and makes it valuable for those who may or may not have diverse educational backgrounds, but require using these technologies. Most books on geospatial technologies target a specific audience. Contrary to this, Geographical Information Science tries to target three different audiences (users, students, and engineers) by using formats and languages comfortable to them. While this effort is laudable, maintaining the balance and attractiveness to all the three audiences is challenging. The author, Narayan Panigrahi, has accomplished this balancing act but with mixed outcomes. His computer science background is clearly seen in the structure and contents of the chapters.
Geographers plan new communities, decide where new highways should be placed, and establish evacuation plans. Computerized mapping and data analysis is known as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), a new frontier in geography. Spatial data is gathered on a variety of subjects and input onto a computer. GIS users can create an infinite number of maps by requesting portions of the data to plot.
J B Harley, 1989, Deconstructing The Map, Ann Arbor, Michigan: MPublishing, University of Michigan Library.
The Beauty of Maps, (2010- ), BBC series, Part 1, Medieval Maps: Mapping the Medieval Mind.
The claim being discussed here is that the only way a map or a way of representing things can be useful is if it simplifies the knowledge that the actual territory gives, that is, if it reduces the salient i...
There was a time a person would use a roadmap to get from one location to another. Some also would stop and ask for directions. Today, you seldom see paper maps and people stopping at a local gas station for directions. Many vehicles come with a navigation system that provides a real-time map of the vehicle’s current location as well as systematic directions to requested destination.
De, Blij Harm J., and Peter O. Muller. Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts. New York: J. Wiley, 1997. 340. Print.