Forest Capital

During our visit to the Wynn School in Tewkesbury, our Wrangler Mr. Kevin told us about a country that will open its new capital in the same year that the Wynn students will be graduating high school in 2022.

The West African country of Equatorial Guinea is currently one of very few countries whose capital is on an island that is separate most of its mainland territory on a continent (Denmark is another good example).

In the case of Equatorial Guinea, this arrangement has proven difficult to maintain, so the government has embarked on a project to move its capital to a mainland location that will be known as Oyala. It is fitting that the United States is helping to fund this move, since we moved our own national capital a couple of times before the construction of Washington, D.C.

Read more about the challenges facing Equatorial Guinea and the reasons for this relocation on the BBC web site. The Monga Bay web site describes concerns about the 8,000 hectares of rain forest that would be cleared for construction.

This planner's rendering of the future capital Oyala resembles the
PacMan video game, but it is a serious
plan for settling 200,000 residents in the new city.

Wynn School, Tewksbury - December 9th

42º 37' 48" N
71º 18' 08" W
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The EarthView team is happy to be making our second school visit of the week to Wynn Middle School in Tewksbury! Last year we had an interesting trip to the school as our GPS devices failed us, bringing us to the wrong location! John W. Wynn Middle School is located at 1 Griffin Way, not 1 Griffin Road. This led to much confusion and a hilarious ride to school, the story about that adventure can be found here. 

Our visit to the school last year also made national news! The article found in US News & World Report can be found here. 

This week, we came across a neat video explaining the different map projections and why they are distorted! Give it a watch and tell us what you think!




If you would like to visit the website mentioned at the end of the video where you can see the true size of a country compared to other countries, visit thetruesize.com 

We hope that the students of Wynn Middle School enjoy their visit with EarthView! We will be back to the school in January! 

Ahern Middle School, Foxboro - December 6th

42° 4' 27" N
71° 14' 18" W
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After a brief hiatus from Thanksgiving Break, EarthView visits are back in swing! Our first stop this week brought us to Ahern Middle School in Foxboro. 

We always have a wonderful visit with the sixth graders at the school whenever we stop by, and we have stopped by almost every year since the EarthView project began in 2008. 

If you would like to see all of the blog posts we have written about our visits to Ahern, click here and here!

Tantasaqua Jr. High, Fiskdale -- Nov 18

42° 09' 24" N

72° 07' 44" W

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The EarthView team is pleased, as always, to be returning to Tantasqua. We always enjoy our visits, because this is the home school of our very own Globe Lady, who taught French and geography there for many years before "retiring" and joining our team. She still teaches there from time to time when she is not traveling throughout the state to meet us wherever we take EarthView. We also know from experience that the students at Tantasqua are well-prepared in geography and eager to learn even more!

During our visit we will be using EarthView to help Tantasqua students visualize some of the geography lessons they have been learning; we will also be discussing a lot of additional geographic connections. 

For example, Dr. Hayes-Bohanan will be speaking about several current connections to the country of Morocco. On Thursday morning, he was rowing a boat in New Bedford harbor when he saw Fortuna Bay -- one of the largest ships ever to enter that port turn to leave for the Panama Canal. He had taken this photograph a few days before, as the ship lay berthed in New Bedford as dozens of trucks took clementines from its hold, to be taken to Canada!

Many thousands -- perhaps a few million -- of these fruits had been gathered from throughout Morocco and loaded onto the Fortuna Bay when it was in Agadir, Morroco. The fruit was not ultimately destined for New Bedford, though. It was ultimately destined for store shelves throughout eastern Canada!

This week, however, Morocco .is part of a story that is much bigger than any fruit, no matter how delightful! For the past week, officials from 197 countries have been meeting in Marrakech, Morocco to discuss an international agreement to reduce climate change.

Climate meeting in Marrakech, Morocco

Lt. Peter M. Hansen Elementary School, Canton - November 15th

42° 11' 00" N
71° 07' 44" W
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The EarthView team is excited to be visiting Lt. Peter M. Hansen Elementary School in Canton on Tuesday this week! Our last visit to the school occurred on June 1st, the blog post for that visit can be found here. Our very first visit to the school offered up some interesting information on how the town of got its name, that blog post can be found here. 

Today's visit brings us on the National Day of Action, which calls those who are concerned about access to clean water, the destruction of sacred sites, and Native American sovereignty to come together and speak out in support of the Standing Rock Sioux and their protests to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. 

One way that you can show your support and have your voice heard is by visiting, rezpectourwater.com and signing the petition. 

No DAPL

We hope that you will join us in showing our support for the Standing Rock Sioux and we hope that the students of Lt. Peter M. Hansen Elementary School enjoy their visit with EarthView! 

Leominster High School - November 4th

42° 32' 01" N
71° 46' 45" W 
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The EarthView team is excited to be visiting Leominster High School for the first time today! We very rarely get to visit with high school students, our last high school visit was to Middleboro High in 2009 and we actually ended up getting two Geography majors and EarthView wranglers from that visit! 

This week's visit brings us during a time of turmoil in North Dakota due to the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) that is set to run through disputed Sioux territory, some folks claim it to be private property but others see it as rightfully belonging to the Sioux. Whether the land be private or Native American Reservation, the pipeline is set to be placed upriver from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation which would threaten the water supply. Ironically, the pipeline was originally set to run upriver from Bismark however it was re-positioned as there was concern about the drinking water there. The map below clearly explains the situation and more information can be found on Dr. Hayes-Bohanan's environmental geography blog here.

Map courtesy of A #NoDAPL Map

We hope that the students of Leominster High School enjoy their visit with EarthView today, maybe we will even see one of you on campus in a few years!

Captain Samuel Brown Elementary School, Peabody - October 28th

42° 30' 25" N
70° 57' 02" W
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The EarthView team is happy to be visiting the Captain Samuel Brown Elementary School in Peabody this week! This is our third visit to the school, our last visit occurred last December, you can find that blog post and some fun facts about Peabody here. 
This week our Geography Department became the proud owner of a new map! This map challenges people's perceptions of maps by showing South up! EarthView wrangler Eva got to see the map in person during her class the other morning and she sure thought it was cool! Hopefully we might be able to bring it around to schools like we do with EarthView! For now, please take a look at the photo of it below! 

Dr. James Hayes-Bohanan and Dr. Robert Amey opening the new map! 

Our visit this week brings us just a few days before Halloween and USA Today published a very timely survey identifying the most favorite candy by state. Who would've thought there could be a geography of candy? Just goes to show that there's a geography of just about everything (if not everything)! 




We hope that the students of Captain Samuel Brown Elementary enjoy their visit with EarthView and we wish you a safe Halloween! 

Peter W. Reilly Elementary School, Lowell - October 21st

42° 38' 31" N
71° 16' 47" W 
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The EarthView team was excited to visit the Peter W. Reilly Elementary School in Lowell for the first time last Friday! Our last visit to Lowell was back in March when we had visited the Pyne Arts Magnet School. We had a great first visit and we certainly hope to be back soon! 

 

BSU Family Day - October 15th

While this week, EarthView will not be traveling to a middle school, the EarthView team members will be in two different countries!!

On Friday, Dr. Hayes-Bohanan and some other faculty along with a handful of students will be visiting Bishop's University in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada for the annual NESTVAL conference. If you recall, BSU hosted NESTVAL around this time last year and we proudly showed off EarthView (blog post for that event can be found here). 

   \

EarthView may not be venturing up to the NESTVAL conference this weekend but it will be on display here at BSU with Dr. Domingo for Homecoming and Family Day! On Saturday, BSU will be hosting students and their families along with alumni to partake in annual homecoming day festivities. If you are in the area please stop by the Moakley Atrium on Saturday October 15th between noon-4pm!! You don't want to miss it! Especially if you have yet to see Earthview in person!

We wish Dr. Hayes-Bohanan and his students a safe and fun trip to Canada and we hope to see the rest of you on Saturday at Family Day! 

North Andover Middle School - October 6th & October 7th

42° 41' 36" N
71° 07' 15" W
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We're back! The Earthview team is excited to be making our annual two day trip to North Andover Middle School! We will be doing a day program at the school on both Thursday and Friday while also showcasing EarthView at their 8th annual Geography Night! 

At this year's Geography Night, there will be many fun things to see and do including a food truck (or two) for the attendees to enjoy and a performance by the O'Shea Chaplin Irish Dancers. We are certainly looking forward to seeing many new and familiar faces! 

If you have caught any glimpse of the news or social media this week, you will have seen coverage on Hurricane Matthew, the strongest Atlantic Hurricane since Hurricane Felix in 2007. A well-respected BSU Geography alumn, Phil Klotzbach wrote an article for the Washington Post explaining how Hurricane Matthew has been shattering records since it first became a storm on September 28th. For one, Hurricane Mathew underwent the third fastest intensification of a storm, going from a Category 1 to a Category 5 storm in just 24 hours, trailing behind Hurricane Wilma (2005) and Hurricane Felix (2007). Hurricane Matthew is also the longest-lived Cat 4-5 hurricane in the eastern Caribbean on record. So far, Hurricane Matthew has struck Haiti, Cuba, and the Bahamas as a Category 4. It has killed 25 people and its current path has it making landfall in Florida and South Carolina by Friday and Saturday. People are already evacuating the coastal areas in these states. 

Tracking Hurricane Matthew

According to MEMA, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, the current track for Hurricane Matthew does not show it directly affecting our weather. They have their eyes on the storm though so if it does shift direction we will certainly know in a timely manner. Until then, remember to check out ready.gov and make sure that you and your family have a well stocked emergency kit in case we do get hit by this storm (or any storm for that matter).

We hope that the students and families of North Andover enjoy their visit with EarthView! 

South Middle School, Braintree - September 30th

38°41'50"N
03°53'44"W
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The EarthView team is happy to be visiting South Middle School in Braintree for our annual visit! 

While thinking about something to write about this week, EarthView wrangler Eva stumbled across a Sun Chronicle article that sure caught her attention! The article is titled "Stockpile the bread and milk. Winter's coming and it looks to be cruel". While our Fall season is barely underway as the Autumnal Equinox just occurred last week, it is never too early to prepare for Winter...or is it? 

According to the article, Accuweather has released a long range forecast which warns that the Northeast, especially the area between Hartford, Connecticut and Boston, Massachusetts will see frequent storms, below normal temperatures, and that the snow could last into early to mid Spring. 

Boston after a blizzard in 2006

    

Can you guess what's happening on March 4th, 2017?

How accurate is this forecast? I guess we will have to wait and find out. However, the farther into the future you go, the less certain a weather forecast is. As long as it does not snow on or around March 4th, Eva will be a happy camper!










We hope that the students of South Middle School enjoy their visit inside of Earthview and we hope to be back next year!

Oak Hill Middle School, Newton - September 22nd

42°18'36"N 

71°11'29"W

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The EarthView team is excited to be visiting Oak Hill Middle School in Newton for the very first time! We will be visiting with the sixth grade students here.

We were informed that these students have just read the book, "If the World Were a Village" by David Smith. Ironically enough, EarthView wrangler Eva saw this book for sale at the consignment shop that she works in over the Summer and bought it! It is a book geared towards the youth and explains different issues that we face on our planet due to the world population.

One of the biggest issues we face is the limited supply of fresh water that is available to us. During the first few minutes of the EarthView program, while inside of the globe and it is filling up with air, we address this issue first hand using a box of blue and white painted beads. Inside of the box there are 100 beads that represent all of the water found on the Earth. 97 of the beads are painted blue and represent the amount of salt water on Earth, 2 of the beads are painted white representing the amount of fresh water that is stored away in glaciers, while there is 1 bead that is painted gold. This bead represents all of the fresh drinking water available to all on the Earth. This representation really helps to show why it is so important to conserve our water. It is a precious and limited resource that we all need to survive! Remember that the next time you are brushing your teeth or taking a shower. Be sure to turn off the faucet when you are not using it and try to minimize the amount of time that you spend in the shower.

If we were all aware of the impact that we have on Earth, I think we could definitely do our part to make this world a better place.

We hope that the students of Oak Hill Middle enjoy their visit with EarthView and we hope to visit again!

East Middle School, Braintree - September 16th

42°13'15"N 

70°59'23"W

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Also, compare today's coordinates to those of other recent EarthView outings, near and far!

Hello Earthlings!

We apologize for not blogging about this visit to East Middle School in Braintree last week, September 16th. This Fall semester has really gotten to us but we certainly will he bloggint every week like usual!

We had a great time visiting East Middle School in Braintree as we do every year! We hope that the students enjoyed their visit inside or EarthView and we look forward to our visit next year!

Mill Pond School, Westborough -- September 9

42° 16' 06" N
71° 36' 54" W 
These six numbers locate Mill Pond School uniquely on the planet!
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The EarthView team is making its first visit to Mill Pond School, where sixth graders are studying several topics we can explore with EarthView, such as climate change and the continental-drift theories of Alfred Wegener (1880-1930). 



The  town of Westborough is preparing to celebrate its tricentennial, having been founded in 1717. About sixty years ago, the situation of Westborough changed. Situation is an important concept in geography, referring to the location of a place in relationship to other places. The word is used in contrast to site, which refers to characteristics inherent in the place itself. 

How does the situation of a town change? It cannot move, of course, but its connections to other places can. In this case, the Interstate Highway System put Westborough at a major crossroads between I-90 and I-495. The first crosses the entire continent east-to-west, while the other connects all of the outer suburbs of Boston, from Cape Cod to Cape Ann.

EarthView will be taking center stage today, as we have use of the school auditorium, rather than the gymnasium. We know that the globe will perform well in this, our first program of the 2016-2017 school year.

Scooby Down Under

As the EarthView team gets ready for our ninth year of bringing our giant globe to schools and other venues, we want to remind everyone that geography can be fun! From the humor site South End News in the UK comes this cartoon map showing that the map of Australia resembles Scooby Doo!

As you look at other parts of the world, perhaps you find some other interesting characters lurking in the earth's features. If so, feel free to share them in the "comments" section below!

Africa is Not a Country

The EarthView team often takes the opportunity to remind people that Africa is not a country. When 25 young professionals from 17 African countries visited EarthView. We asked them to help us share the message.

Mandela Washington Fellows -- BSU June 27

The EarthView team is proud to be making a presentation to a distinguished group of leaders from throughout the continent of Africa who are participating in the Mandela Washington Fellowship program. We will be welcoming leaders from 17 countries to a special presentation of EarthView. We have also arranged for them to experience their continent on the National Geographic traveling flat map -- a huge map of their home continent that we can explore by walking from country to country!



We look forward to meeting and learning with these young leaders.

BSU President Fred Clark, Esq. recently announced the program to the campus community.

On June 17, Bridgewater State University will welcome 25 African leaders to participate in the U.S. State Department’s Mandela Washington Fellowship (MWF), the flagship program of President Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) (http://www.bridgew.edu/mandela-washington-fellowship). President Obama launched YALI in 2010 to support young African leaders as they spur growth and prosperity, strengthen democratic governance, and enhance peace and security across the continent.

The Fellows are emerging civic and public leaders aged 25-36 and are coming to Southeastern Massachusetts from Angola; Botswana; Cabo Verde; Cameroon; Ethiopia; Kenya; Lesotho; Liberia; Mauritius; Nigeria; São Tomé and Príncipe; Senegal; Sierra Leone; Somalia; South Africa; Swaziland; and Uganda. Those selected for the program have promoted innovation and positive change in their organizations, institutions and communities.

Through the extraordinary efforts of the entire campus, and after six months of intense planning, we have created an outstanding Public Management Institute that includes academic course work, leadership training, cultural experiences and networking opportunities.  The Fellowship experience will culminate in August with all 1,000 Mandela Washington Fellows from each of the 41 host universities across the United States attending a summit in Washington, D.C., with President Obama.

The Mandela Washington Fellowship program presents a remarkable opportunity for our university to have a deep and meaningful engagement with Africa, and significantly enhance our strong reputation as a public university committed to global education. We can all take pride in being part of this effort to empower the next generation of African leaders.

Sharon Middle School - June 10th

42° 06' 24" N
71° 09' 58" W
Learn more about Lat/Long (including how to look them up by address)
Also, compare today's coordinates to those of other recent EarthView outings, near and far!

 

We're back! Today is our second visit to Sharon in as many weeks and is our last EarthView visit for the 2015-2016 school year. 

At our visit last week, while giving his introduction to EarthView to a group of 7th grade students, Dr. Hayes-Bohanan was reminded of a video from the 1980's showing "recent" (recent for the video) Harvard Graduates trying to explain the seasons: 



Dr. Hayes-Bohanan explains more about this video in his blog post, Geo Veritas on his blog, environmentalgeography.blogspot.com

I hope that we would all know the reason for the seasons but we could all use a refresher every now and then, and this video does a great job explaining the phenomenon. 




Learning geography is a critical life skill, it teaches us about the world, its people, and gives us a much better understanding of why things occur where they occur and why. Geography education allows us to be informed citizens, and contribute to our planet in ways that will help it survive far into the future. The Earth is our home and we must protect it. And as can be seen in the next two videos below, it is never too early to learn geography!!






We hope that the students at Sharon Middle School enjoy their visit with EarthView today and we hope that the students who have ventured inside of EarthView this school year had a great time learning about the Earth with us! We're looking forward to seeing many new faces come September. Have a safe and enjoyable summer! 

Lagniappe

Geography is both global and local, and often focus on interactions between humans and their natural environment. At Sharon Middle School, we found an excellent example of the school itself doing something to protect the environment.

This area of the parking lot shows that care was taken with both the water and the soil. Typically, dividing areas like this in parking lots are elevated, but this one is below the pavement level in a small depression known as a swale. This allows water from heavy rains to be held temporarily, so that it can soak into the ground, rather than rushing to the nearest streams. This reduces flooding and makes water more available to local wells. The ground is covered by grass but also clover, because clover captures nitrogen from the air and helps to improve the soil without any chemical fertilizer. 

¡Adiós!

The EarthView program travels to many schools each year, with more than 10,000 people participating in the program since last September (and close to 80,000 since 2008). We ended our school year at Sharon Middle School this year, though we will be doing some special summer programs on our campus and in various communities.

2015-2016 EarthView Team (l-r): Globe Lady, Eva, Dr. Hayes-Bohanan,
Dr. Domingo, Kevin. (Not shown: Karen & Courtney)

Rumney Marsh Academy, Revere -- June 8

42º 24' 47" N
71º 00' 12" W
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The EarthView team is very happy to be back at Rumney Marsh Academy, where we have enjoyed several visits in the past. The school has a few interesting geographic distinctions, the first of which is being named for a significant water feature, the Rumney Marsh coastal wetland. Another important distinction its location across the street from the New England Confection Company, better known as NECCO. It seems like a middle-school dream to have a huge candy factory across the street from school.

We were at Rumney-Marsh as recently as 2014, but neglected to post on the blog for that visit. Our 2012 blog post includes a number of geographically significant anniversaries, most notably the 2011 Springfield-Monson Tornado. Our 2011 blog post includes maps and discussion of the marsh for which the school is named and the geography of Revere in general.

This year, our visit takes place on World Ocean Day, which is appropriate for a  school located practically on the beach. Musician Jack Johnson introduces today's celebration of oceans:


Our EarthView visit is an ideal activity for #worldoceansday because it allows us to contemplate both the vastness and the importance of the world's oceans. Most people who enter EarthView for the first time are surprised by the size of the Pacific Ocean, which covers almost 1/3 of the planet's surface and nearly as than as the other oceans -- Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, and Southern -- combined. 
EarthView was constructed before the international agreement that designated the Southern Ocean in the year 2000, but the seam at the edge of EarthView's floor is in almost exactly the right place to represent its 60-degree South longitute. 

For more information, see How Many Oceans? from NOAA Ocean Service and
Geography of the World's Oceans from geography@about.com.

Amesbury Middle School - June 7th

42° 50' 54"N

70° 55' 50"W

Learn more about Lat/Long (including how to look them up by address)
Also, compare today's coordinates to those of other recent EarthView outings, near and far!

 

This week is a very busy week for Earthview and we apologize for getting behind in our blog posts!! This is our last week of Earthview for this academic school year and we are visiting 4 schools this week alone!

On Monday, June 6th, Dr. Hayes-Bohanan took EarthView to the Sarah Greenwood School in Dorchester. The Sarah Greenwood School offers dual-language instruction (English and Spanish) for students in Kindergarten through the 2nd grade. We had visited the school earlier in the year on April 27th, but unfortunately the fan that powers EarthView failed and we were unable to go through with the program. Luckily we have a back-up fan and have since fixed the issue so we were able to come back to the school and present a great geography program for two Kindergarten classes!

Our visit Tuesday brought us to Amesbury Middle School for the very first time! Prior to our arrival at the school, we had received an email telling us that we would not miss the "Dough Boy" statue out in the front of the school. Earthview Wrangler Eva and Dr. Domingo did not think too much of this but were surprised to see the statue of a World War I soldier outside of the middle school. "That's a dough boy statue?" exclaimed Eva when she and Dr. Domingo arrived at the school, believe it or not, she was expecting to see a statue of the Pillsbury Dough Boy....The reasoning behind why World War I soldiers are exclusively referred to as "doughboys" is unclear, however there are many theories about the nickname and they can be found here.

                            

We were impressed by all the enthusiasm from both the students and the staff of Amesbury Middle School. Not only was EarthView used by the social studies classes, it was also used by one of the math classes! Students in the 7th grade were using trigonometry to find the height of Earthview, and they successfully figured it out...20 feet tall! And to our pleasant surprise, a map was put on display in the gym to show how "far" the students would have ran with a combined total of their miles!

Our visit to Amesbury gave us a perfect example of how EarthView and geography in general can be used for a variety of disciplines! We certainly hope to be back soon!

We even made the Newburyport News!
 

Sharon Middle School - June 3rd

42° 06' 24" N
71° 09' 58" W
Learn more about Lat/Long (including how to look them up by address)
Also, compare today's coordinates to those of other recent EarthView outings, near and far! 




The EarthView team is happy to be visiting Sharon Middle School for the fourth year in a row! We will be visiting the school today and next Friday, June 10th. Our last visits to the school occurred on February 27th and March 6th last year, you can check out those blog posts by clicking on the dates. 

In search of what to write about for today's blog post, I came across an article from the Daily Mail exclaiming that scientists have discovered that the famous King Tut was buried with a dagger that was made from a meteorite! 

The dagger contained high levels of Nickel and trace amounts of Cobalt and Phosphorus. Scientists were able to match the chemical composition of the blade to a meteorite named Kharga that was discovered in the year 2000 on the Maras Matruh plateau in Egypt. What is very interesting is that Egyptians were using iron directly from meteorites while Europeans were limited to using bronze. Pretty cool discovery! 

More locally, a couple of weeks ago on May 17th, a meteor was seen in the skies over New England! 

Fireball spotted over New England

The map below created by the American Meteor Society shows where the "fireball" could be seen...Did you see it? Let us know!

Reported Meteor Sighting on May 17th, 2016

We hope that the students of Sharon Middle School enjoy their visit with EarthView today!