Captain Samuel Brown Elementary, Peabody- December 11th

42° 30' 25" N
70° 57' 02" W
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The EarthView team is excited to be back visiting Captain Samuel Brown Elementary in Peabody today! This is our second visit to the school, our first visit was in this past March. Our last blog post for the school talked about snow...luckily there is no snow in the forecast for today's visit! 

Since the blog post for the first visit to the school did not offer any fun facts on Peabody here are some!

• Peabody is located in Essex County 
• Had a population of 51,251 in the 2010 Census
• Was first settled in 1626 as a part of Salem
• In 1752, the area set off and became Danvers
• In 1855 the community broke away and became South Danvers
• On April 30th, 1868 South Danvers became Peabody 
• Peabody was incorporated as a city in 1916
• Peabody was a farm community but became the center of New England's Leather Industry
• The city is referred to as Leather City or Tanner City by locals
• Peabody is 16.8 square miles and is located just 15 miles northeast of Boston

This is our last EarthView visit of 2015! We hope that all of the students who have visited EarthView this year have had a wonderful experience and we hope that they'll cherish the memories that they've made for a lifetime! We will start off EarthView in 2016 on January 15th when we visit Johnston, Rhode Island! 

We wish all of our Earthviewers a wonderful holiday season and a happy and healthy new year! 

EarthView in the National Spotlight!

An article on EarthView and our work made it into a national newspaper!!

A couple of weeks back when we visited Wynn Middle School in Tewksbury on November 13th, reporters from The Town Crier and The Lowell Sun came and interviewed Dr. Hayes-Bohanan, Dr. Domingo and The Globelady Ms. Rosalie Sokol about the program. Somehow our article in The Lowell Sun made it's way to the Associated Press and we were featured in the U.S. News and World Report!

We are thrilled that Bridgewater State University's involvement in STEM and Geography Education has been mentioned on the national level! 

To read the full article please click here.

Tenney Grammar School, Methuen- December 4th

42° 43' 55" N
71° 10' 40" W 
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The EarthView team is happy to be back visiting the sixth grade students at Tenney Grammar in Methuen. This is our fourth time visiting the school. Our last visit was on March 27th and the blog post for that visit can be found here. 

Update from the day:
This was the fist visit to the school for EarthView Wranglers Karen and Eva. They were both surprised to find that the gymnasium is located on the second floor of the school! Dr. Domingo informed us of how the school got it's name...a man named Charles Tenney who was born in Salem, New Hampshire but moved to Methuen, Ma established a hat manufacturing business in the 1860's. He became very rich through the selling of his hats and when he died in 1919 he left money to the town of Methuen. Charles Tenney along with his brothers were a well-off family in Methuen and their legacy continues to live on today. 

We hope that the students of Tenney Grammar enjoyed their visit with EarthView and we hope to be back again next year!

Lt. Peter M. Hansen Elementary School, Canton- November 20th

42° 11' 00" N
71° 07' 44" W
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The EarthView team is excited to be visiting Lieutenant Peter M Hansen Elementary School in Canton today! This is our first ever visit to the town of Canton!

Since this is our first trip to Canton, here are some fun facts about the town:
-Canton was originally part of the neighboring town Stoughton
-Canton became incorporated as a town in 1797
-Paul Revere built the first Copper Rolling Mill here in 1801
-Today, Canton is home to the headquarters of Reebok and Dunkin Donuts

An interesting thing to note is how Canton got its name...a prominent Canton citizen, Elijah Dunbar, suggested that the town be named Canton because he believed that Canton, China was it's antipode, meaning that he believed Canton, China was directly opposite them on Earth. Today we know that this is untrue as the antipode of an area cannot be in the same hemisphere as the one that you are in. The true antipode of Canton, Massachusetts is somewhere off of the southwestern coast of Australia. We discovered a fun interactive website where you can find your location on the map and it will show you your antipode!

To look up your locations antipode, visit this website here!

There are a lot more fun facts on the town of Canton that can be found by visiting the Canton Citizen's website or by going here.

We hope that the students of Lt. Peter M. Hansen Elementary School enjoy their visit with EarthView today and we hope to be back again soon!

John W. Wynn Middle School, Tewksbury-November 13th

42º 37' 48" N
71º 18' 08" W
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We're back! On Friday November 13th we are back visiting John W. Wynn Middle School in Tewksbury! 

Last week was quite the adventure for us EarthView wranglers...we got lost on the way to the school! Which was quite hilarious actually since there were 3 geographers in the van and another geography knowledgeable student. Our GPS devices failed us as we had to use 4 of them before we were finally directed to the school. 

The first GPS brought us to Griffin Street in Lowell, while the next GPS device brought us to Griffin Road in Tewksbury. The map of the school location a the top of this post is wrong as John W. Wynn Middle School is actually located on Griffin Way not Griffin Road. No wonder there was such confusion!



 
Luckily Griffin Road is right down the street from Griffin Way and we were able to make it to the school. For this week we have certainly learned our lesson and will remember to pack a paper map! We can't rely on technology for everything because they are not always right!


We hope the students at John W. Wynn Middle School enjoy their visit with EarthView today!

Update: This EarthView visit to Wynn Middle made national news! 

John W. Wynn Middle School, Tewksbury- November 6th

42º 37' 48" N
71º 18' 08" W
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The EarthView team is happy to be visiting Wynn Middle School in Tewksbury! This is our second year visiting the school and we will be there both this Friday November 6th and next Friday November 13th. 

Our last visits took place in March and the blog post for those visits can be found here.

We hope that the seventh grade students at Wynn Middle enjoy their visit inside of EarthView! 

On Top of the Ocean

From Public Radio International comes the amazing story of surfing at Praia do Norte in Nazare, Portugal. Nazare means Nazareth, and the North Beach of this town near the capital Lisbon experiences unusually large waves that attract the world's most expert surfers.

As explained in the radio story about surfing at Nazare this week, canyons in the continental shelf near Nazare are long and deep, and when currents push through them in just the right way, enormous swells result.

This is not a tsunami, however. It is a recurring wave in a very specific area, rather than a single wave over a very broad area that would come ashore in a dangerous way.

The jet-ski operator in the video above shows just as much skill as the surfer. Jet skis are necessary, because no surfer can swim out through such enormous, fast-moving breakers.

As with people with a strong interest in any subject, some surfers have developed a keen interest in the geography of their sport. For this reason, one of the most detailed explanations of the geography of the Nazare Swell comes from thousands of miles away, on the blog of a surf shop in San Clemente, California.

Ahern Middle School, Foxboro, Ma- October 29th

42° 4' 27" N
71° 14' 18" W
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The EarthView team is excited to be visiting Ahern Middle School in Foxboro today! We have visited Ahern almost every year since EarthView began! Our last visit was on November 14th of last year and the blog post for that visit can be found here. 

The current 6th graders are learning about the five themes of geography and how geographical features such as rivers and mountains affect population patterns.  

The Five Themes of Geography encompass Location, Place, Region, Movement, and Human-Environment interaction. 

Location refers to where a place is located on the Earth. It can either be absolute, like latitude and longitude or relative like "next door".

A Place is an area that is defined by everything in it while a Region is an area that is defined by similar characteristics.

Movement describes the way that people, information & ideas move from one place to another while Human-Environment Interaction look at the relationships between people and their environment: how they adapt to it, change it, etc.

Almost anything in any discipline can be looked at Geographically. Geography education is key! It is not just about knowing state capitals and countries, it's about learning how to look at and understand the world!

Carlos Pacheco Elementary, New Bedford- October 23rd

41° 39' 24" N
70° 56' 25" W
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The EarthView team was happy to be back visiting Carlos Pacheco school in New Bedford today. We had visited the school earlier in the month to visit with the 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. Today we had the opportunity to visit with the pre-k, kindergartners and 1st graders! They were so excited to have us visit and we were thrilled to have brought them this opportunity. 

Wedding of the Waters

When traveling with EarthView, we often point out an intriguing geographic oddity in the middle of the world's largest rain forest -- the "wedding of the waters" at Manaus, in the center of the Amazon Basin.  Two members of the EarthView team have actually visited this amazing feature.

It is part of our more general lesson about the importance of rivers and the fact that rivers are actually river systems. What we know by a single name -- such as the Charles, the Nile, the Mississippi, or the Hudson -- is actually a network of streams that flow toward each other and toward a common discharge into a larger river, sea, or ocean. These river networks are said to drain a river basin or drainage basin.

In the case of the Amazon Basin, an extraordinary river has some extraordinary characteristics. A dozen of its tributaries are each over 1,000 miles long -- the Xingu, the Madeira, and many others would be significant river systems on their own. And more than 1,000 tributaries have been named -- smaller systems such as the Rio Candeias (Candles River) in Rondonia. Many smaller tributaries have not been named.

But of all the tributaries of the Amazon, it is the confluence of two major streams near Manaus that is most extraordinary. The Rio Solimões looks like coffee full of cream, as it brings sediment from the steep slopes of the Andes; the Rio Negro resembles black tea with nothing in it, because of its tannic acids. It is similar to many of the streams we find in New England, particularly in forested areas in the late autumn. It flows very slowly from the Guyana Highlands, carrying ample sediments.

Expedition leader Allan Marshall from the Florida Aquarium gives students an entertaining way to learn some of the details of this incredible location, where the one of the world's great rivers is actually formed.


Fascinating, but not unique: As amazing as the Wedding of the Waters is, it turns out that many similar phenomena can be found around the world, where rivers with very different characteristics come together and for a variety of reasons do not immediately mix.

Dr. Hayes-Bohanan prepared the Confluences Map to highlight ten of these interesting locations, based on an article from the Twisted Sifter blog. The map allows you to follow each of the tributaries toward its source, to investigate what makes it distinctive.

Map snapshot. View all of the confluences on the Dynamic Map.

More learning: The Amazon Basin -- specifically the state of Rondonia in its western portion -- was Dr. Hayes-Bohanan's introduction to geography. Learn about his three journeys there (including one with his three-year-old daughter) and about everyday life in the Amazon from Folha da Fronteira on his Rondonia Web pages.

Even more learning: Look at a map to see what river is closest to your own house or school. Do any smaller rivers flow together upstream to form this river? Does it join with any others as it flows toward the sea? If you could put a canoe in the river, where could you take it?

North Andover Middle School, North Andover- October 15 & 16

42° 41' 36" N
71° 07' 15" W
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The Earthview team is thrilled to be back visiting North Andover Middle School! We have a two day stop at the school, first for the seventh annual Geography night and our usual Friday day program! 

North Andover Middle School has a wonderful Geography education program and we are always excited that they welcome us to their school every year, they have hosted us more than any other school in the state! You can see all of our prior blog posts on North Andover here. 

Our last visit to North Andover back on October 2nd and 3rd of last year was made extra special by a visit from WBZ News anchor, Paula Ebbens who did a report on the Geography Night for their Eye on Education segment! EarthView's own Dr. Domingo was interviewed for the piece and it can be found here:
Eye On Education: Geography Teacher Brings World To His Students « CBS Boston

We hope that this years Geography Night was just as fun and that the students enjoy their day with EarthView tomorrow! 

NESTVAL, BSU- October 9th

41°59'17"N
70°58'21"W
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While EarthView was not visiting a middle school today like usual, EarthView was on display today and will be tomorrow at the annual NESTVAL conference. The New England-Saint Lawerence Valley Geographical Society hosts a conference every year where local geography students display and present their research and participate in fun activities such as the GeoBowl which is a geography trivia competition between the participating colleges in attendance.

This years NESTVAL conference is being held here at Bridgewater State University and we are very excited to be hosting geography students and professors from all over the region! We hope that everyone participating enjoys their weekend here at BSU. 

Envision EarthView

The EarthView team was proud to be part of Envision Girls 2015, a workshop for girls interested in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning. Because geography is both a human science and a natural science, we always like to encourage people to think about the science of the earth.

Dr. Domingo explains some connections between STEM and geography in this brief interview.


STEM Earth View from Norton TV on Vimeo.

Carlos Pacheco Elementary, New Bedford- October 2nd

41° 39' 24" N
70° 56' 25" W
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The EarthView team is excited to be visiting Carlos Pacheco Elementary School in New Bedford for the first time today! This is our first EarthView trip to a New Bedford School. While we had not visited before, some New Bedford students were lucky enough to view EarthView back at our home base at Bridgewater State University by participating in the BRIDGE program. 

New Bedford is a very historic city and we are glad to be visiting! EarthViews very own Dr. Hayes-Bohanan frequents the New Bedford area as he is a member of the Whaling City Rowing club which rows throughout New Bedford Harbor. He has written about this on his environmental geography blog which can be found here.

During our visit today, a strong hurricane is making its way through the Atlantic Ocean. Category 4 Hurricane Joaquin has left its mark on the Bahamas and other surrounding islands as it continues slowly moving to the north, northeast at around 3 miles per hour. While hurricane Joaquin is currently on track to pass by the coast of Massachusetts well offshore, it is not out of the question that the track could change towards us within the next couple of days.

National Hurricane Center Prediction as of 11am 10/2/15

One interesting thing to note is that in New Bedford, there is a hurricane barrier that runs through New Bedford and Fairhaven Harbor. It protects the cities of New Bedford, Fairhaven and Achushnet from storm surges and tidal flooding that comes with powerful storms such as hurricanes. It also serves as a corral for large ships from all over the North Atlantic. If Hurricane Joaquin makes a close enough path to our coastline, the hurricane barrier may be closed early next week to protect the area. We will just have to wait and see!

EarthView wrangler Eva, is really into emergency management preparedness and she would like to make sure that everyone is prepared for the potential risk of this hurricane. There are great checklists of items that everyone should have in their home to mitigate the effects of the aftermath of severe storms. Please visit the National Weather Service's National Hurricane Center page for great tips on how to prepare. And also take a look at ready.gov which also has important information in regards to your safety.

We hope that the students of Carlos Pacheco Elementary School enjoyed their visit with EarthView today! We will be back visiting the school on October 23rd!

Wickford Middle School, North Kingstown, RI- September 25th

41° 34' 04" N
71° 27' 37" W
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The EarthView team is excited to be visiting Wickford Middle School in North Kingstown, Rhode Island! This is our first visit to the school and only our second visit ever to a middle school in Rhode Island! We last visited Nicholas A. Ferri Middle School in Johnston on April 10th.

Since we are visiting for the first time we thought it would be fun to look up some interesting facts about North Kingstown!

Did you know that North Kingstown was first settled by Roger Williams in 1637 and later became a part of Kings Towne in 1674? The settlement of Kings Towne included the present day towns of North Kingstown, South Kingstown, Narragansett and Exeter. In 1722, Kings Towne was split giving way to North and South Kingstown.  Exeter remained a part of North Kingstown until 1742 when it broke from the western part of town.

Quonset Huts

Eva and her dad at the 2014
Quonset Air Show

North Kingstown is located in Washington County and is home to Quonset Point which formally housed the Quonset Point Naval Air Station. The air station was famous for creating the Quonset Hut during World War II. Today, Quonset Point is home to the Rhode Island Air National Guard. Every year in May the base puts on a wonderful air show that is free and open to the public. EarthView wrangler Eva has been to the air show for the past two years and highly recommends that you go at least once!

There are many other fun and historic points of interest in North Kingstown such as Devils Foot Rock, Smith's Castle and Casey Farm-the oldest operating farm in New England. North Kingstown is certainly an interesting place to visit!

We hope that the students of Wickford Middle School enjoy their visit with Earthview!

Braintree Leadership

Almost from the beginning of our program, the EarthView team has enjoyed visiting the two middle schools of Braintree, Massachusetts each year. By this time, close to 3,000 students at East Middle and South Middle have had the EarthView experience. Many parents and siblings have also participated in occasional Family Geography Nights.

We look forward to our visits because we know that we are playing a small part in a much bigger effort to develop geographically informed learners. This is reflected in both the obvious curiosity about the world that the students bring to the program and the understanding of geographic concepts and facts that they exhibit.

A pair of excellent geography teachers in each of the two schools are most responsible for these student successes in geography. We know that they in turn benefit from the leadership and support of the Braintree schools, especially from the tireless work of Dr. Gorman Lee, Director of Social Studies for the district and a leader in social-studies education at the state and national levels.

We opened the 2015-2016 EarthView season at the two schools, and were delighted that many of Braintree's educational leaders were able to join us, along with Mayor Joe Sullivan.

L-R: Dr. James Hayes-Bohanan, Bridgewater State University; Gorman Lee,  Director of Social Studies; Damon Rairie, Principal of South Middle School; Dr. Peter Kurzberk, Interim Superintendent of Schools; Lisa Heger, School Committee; Joe Sullivan; Mayor; Dr. Vernon Domingo; Bridgewater State University; Cyril Chafe, School Committee.

Not pictured are EarthView "Globe Lady" Rosalie Sokol, a veteran middle-school teacher who was inside the globe at the time of this photo, and Braintree's four remarkable World Geography teachers: Mark Henry and ____ of South Middle and ____ and ____ of East Middle.

South Middle School, Braintree- September 18th

38°41'50"N
03°53'44"W
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The EarthView team is happy to be back in Braintree for the second week in a row! While last week's visit brought us to East Middle School, today's visit brings us to South Middle. Our last visit to this school was on November 7th of last year and you can see our post from that visit here. 

If you have heard the news this week, on Wednesday September 16th, an 8.3 magnitude earthquake struck about 29 miles off the coast of Illapel, Chile at about 6:45pm local time (which would have been 5:45pm here in Massachusetts where we live). The earthquake has killed atleast 12 people and triggered a tsunami warning for places in the Pacific such as Hawaii and Japan. Luckily there were no tragedies due to tsunami wave activity. Only relatively small tsunami waves were seen off the coasts of Hawaii, Japan, California, Oregon and even Alaska. 

Epicenter of 8.3 magnitude earthquake in Chile 9/16/15

The United States Geological Society does a great job at explaining seismic activity and I highly recommend visiting their page on this past earthquake! We wonder if the seismograph at the Williams Intermediate School in Bridgewater that we wrote about back in May picked up any movements...

East Middle School, Braintree- September 11th

42°13'15"N 

70°59'23"W

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Welcome Back Earthlings!! 

We hope that you all have had a fun filled summer filled with laughter and traveling and spending time with family and friends. Over the summer the EarthView wranglers and professors traveled and spent some much needed quality time with friends and family. EarthView wrangler Eva traveled to York, Boothbay Harbor and Portland, Maine and she also traveled to North Conway, New Hampshire. Where did you travel to this summer? We would love to hear if you traveled to some exciting places, let us know below in the comment section! 

Although it was sad to see the summer come to a close, we are very excited to be back for this new school year filled with fun and lots of geographic learning opportunities!

Our first visit of this school year takes us to East Middle School in Braintree. We have visited this school numerous times and we will be visiting its counterpart, South Middle School in Braintree next week. The last time we visited East Middle was on Halloween last year and we had a great time, we hope that this visit is just as fun as the last one! The blog post for that visit included a coordinate game, if you would like to play the game, it can be found here. 

Our visit this week brings us on the somber 14th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, may we never forget the tragedy that occurred on this day and may we remember the lives of those who were lost that day and the first responders who have passed away since due to injuries and illnesses that they developed from the attacks. 

EarthView Institute 2015

The EarthView team is delighted to be offering our third EarthView Institute, in which in-service teachers are learning to use EarthView on their own. Participating teachers are spending part of their summer learning how to setup and care for EarthView and more importantly, thinking about how they can use it with their students in the coming school year.

North Reading Middle School, North Reading- June 19th

42° 34' 36" N
71° 05' 17" W
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The EarthView team is pleased to be visiting North Reading Middle School! Today marks our fifth visit to the school since starting the original EarthView BSC Blog and our last Friday school visit of the 2014-2015 school year. 

We have had some exciting visits this year! We started the year by visiting North Andover Middle School for their wonderful family Geography Night and for our first regular Friday school visit. This school year we've traveled to many schools in the Southeastern region of Massachusetts (Bridgewater, Foxboro, Brockton), to schools in the Northern region (Tewksbury, Gloucester, Winchester), to a school on the Cape (Barnstable Intermediate), and even to schools out of state (Johnston, Rhode Island and Arlington, Virginia)! 

                                  


We hope that the students who have gone inside of EarthView this year learned a lot from our teachings and have gained more interest in Geography! We have certainly had a lot of fun traveling around this year and are excited to start back in September for another fun filled year. 

                                           We wish everyone a safe, happy and healthy summer! 

St. Mary of the Annunciation, Danvers -- June 17

42° 34' 06 N
70° 56' 54 W
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The EarthView team is making its first visit to St. Mary of the Annunciation School in Danvers, a town north of Boston that was once part of the coastal town of Salem. We included some information about the geography of the town in the blog post for our 2012 visit to Smith Elementary School.  

The two schools are just over a mile apart Students can use the latitude and longitude of each school to determine which direction the other school is found, relative to St. Mary School.

As detailed in the 2012 post, Danvers is famous as the home of Rebecca Nurse (a victim of the Salem trials) and the source of a famous onion. It is also surrounded by waterways and crisscrossed by all of the region's important roadways.

One thing that surprises people the most about their time in EarthView is the enormous size of the Pacific Ocean, which covers about 1/3 of the planet. We tend to know little about it in the United States, aside from the small area near our shores. One reason is that many world map projections divide and stretch the ocean. In EarthView we can see that Hawaii is almost centered in the ocean, that it has thousands of other islands, and that its coastlines are thousands of miles long.

Our visit to St. Mary School comes on the one-year anniversary of President Obama's addition of 780,000 square miles to the Remote Pacific Islands Marine National Monument. This adds an area bigger than Alaska and California combined to a protected area that was created by President Bush in 2009. It includes areas surrounding Howland, Baker, and Jarvis Islands; Johnston, Wake, and Palmyra Atolls; and Kingman Reef. An interesting aspect of the geography of the Pacific Ocean is that it is actually difficult to get maps, even of such important federal waters!

The anniversary is very interesting because this week Pope Francis has spoken about the importance of climate change in a major statement that has people all over the world discussing the problem and what role the church should or should not play. It is also this week that the Pacific nation of Palau has gotten a lot of attention for the dramatic way it is protecting its fish and corals. The boats that were used to fish illegally in Palau were burned to protect Palau's fish.

Geography's Cool = Geography School

We found a lot of enthusiasm for geography and noticed that students at all grade levels know and care a lot about the planet. Congratulations to St. Mary's for being a great example of how geographic teaching and learning is done. Most of that takes place in the classroom of course, but some evidence of the importance of geography at this school can be seen from space!


The templates to the world map and the US map shown here are available online from Ursa Major. A closer view can be had from the gym window. Spatial-thinking quiz: Which window was used to take this photograph?

Mary Baker School, Brockton- June 12th

42° 5' 49 N
70° 59' 24 W
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We are happy to be back visiting the Mary Baker School in Brockton for our third visit and our second this year! We last visited the school on May 15th and the blog post for that visit can be found here.

The Path of the Worcester Tornado

While trying to think of things to write about for this week's blog post, EarthView wrangler Eva was watching the news the other night when she heard that this past Tuesday, June 9th, marked 62 years since the devastating Worcester Tornado.

On June 9th, 1953 at 5:09pm, a powerful F-4 tornado ravaged through the city of Worcester, Massachusetts becoming known as the 21st deadliest tornado in United States history. The funnel was a mile wide and the tornado was on the ground for about an hour and a half, blowing through some 60 miles of land. While the tornado also affected the nearby towns of Barre, Rutland, Holden and Shrewsbury, Worcester was hit the hardest. In the storm, 94 people were killed and about 1,250 people were injured. 

1953 Worcester Tornado

While it is unlikely for Massachusetts to be affected by tornadoes, we do get powerful storms that spawn up tornadoes every once in a while like the tornado outbreak four years back that affected Springfield and other surrounding towns or even that small EF-0 tornado that hit Stoughton in May of 2013. Tornadoes do happen in our area so we always need to be prepared. 

For a list of ways that you and your family can be prepared for any natural disasters, please visit www.ready.gov/kids 

We hope that the students of Mary Baker School enjoyed their visit with EarthView today! 

Clifford H. Marshall Elementary School, Quincy- June 10th

42° 15' 10" N
71° 0' 03" W
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The EarthView team had its first geography lesson on the way to the Marshall School. As with many people, we relied on Google and a GPS for directions. This took us to the mailing address for the school, which is at the Quincy School Department. We were fortunate that the mail was about to be taken to the school by a staff member who allowed us to follow him. So we have a second map and set of coordinates to share for this visit.

42° 14' 37" N
70° 58' 51" W
The coordinates allow us to compare the two locations -- which is further north? which is further west? -- as does a map of the correct addresses. What lesson did the EarthView team learn about electronic maps?


The EarthView team is excited to be visiting Clifford H. Marshall Elementary School in Quincy for the first time in many years today! Once we arrived, we realized we had actually been to this amazing school during the first year of our EarthView program -- before we had a blog -- so we did not notice it when we checked our records.

While we normally visit schools on Fridays, we are happy to be traveling to two different schools on Wednesday and Friday this week!

We are thrilled to be visiting a city that is full of rich history. In fact, we recently included some Quincy attractions on our GeoDates page for our own university students looking for interesting places to visit.

The city of Quincy was first settled in 1625 as a part of Dorchester before combining with the neighboring town of Braintree. The city split from Braintree in 1792 when it became the town of Quincy and eventually the city we now know today in 1888.

Quincy is the birthplace of two United States Presidents,  the second president John Adams and the sixth president John Quincy Adams. John Hancock, the first signer of the Declaration of Independence was also born here. 

  

John Adams

John Quincy Adams

John Hancock

                      

The United State's first commercial railroad,the Granite Railway, started here and the Fore River Ship Yard sustained the economy of the city by shipbuilding.

In more recent history, the restaurant and hotel chain Howard Johnson (1925) as well as Dunkin Donuts (1950) were founded in Quincy.
                      

We hope that the students of Clifford H. Marshall Elementary school enjoy their visit with EarthView today and we hope to be back soon! 

Really Local Geography
EarthView team member Kevin Bean is a BSU geography student who grew up and still lives very close to the Marshall School, and shared some of the fascinating geography of the neighborhood with the rest of the team and the teachers and students we met today. Wherever we are -- there is a geographic story!

The very first word spoken on a telephone was “Watson,” the name of Alexander Graham Bell’s assistant. In a phone call from Boston, they tested an invention that would change the world and that would make them very wealthy individuals.

Mr. Bell used some of his money to start the National Geographic Society, which is where several members of the EarthView team have had the opportunity to visit his office. A little-known fact is that every president of National Geographic has been a relative of Alexander Graham Bell.

Mr. Watson, meanwhile, invested his fortune in the neighborhood where the Clifford Marshall School is found. Specifically, he built the Fore River Shipyard, which employed thousands of workers from all over the world, building ships that sailed all of the world’s seas until the ship-building industry left in the 1980s. These workers include Kevin's own grandfather, who came to this very neighborhood from Russia to work in the shipyard.

A landmark in the neighborhood is the building by its address at 1000 Southern Artery. Many of the Marshall students we met were aware that this building provides housing for elderly residents, but few realize that was the first building constructed specifically to meet the needs of elderly people in the world. It includes stores, a theater, and many other facilities that make the community as self-contained as possible. Today, however, the center is actually very well-connected to the community, including the Marshall School. Volunteers from the center visit the school as “foster grandparents,” and students from the school perform holiday concerts at the center.

Trinidad Connection

The students at the Marshall School come from around the corner and around the world. Rarely have we encountered a school with so many countries represented by the students who attend or their family members. As geographers, we believe strongly in taking the opportunity to learn about the world from people who have been to places we have not been, or who can offer us local insights about places that we have been. 

So we ask students where they or their parents may have come from, and today several dozen countries were mentioned. One of those was Trinidad -- which is actually part of Trinidad and Tobago. We told the student who mentioned Trinidad that we have a colleague who has recently made a film about a woman who organized her community in order to restore the water of her part of Trinidad.Not only is the film Earth, Water, Woman continuing to help people understand water resources -- Bridgewater students and staff are in Trinidad right now, contributing to the conservation work described in the film. Akilah Jaramogi -- the "star" of the film -- will be visiting the Bridgewater State University campus in the fall for public discussions of her work.