Sharon Middle School - June 10th

42° 06' 24" N
71° 09' 58" W
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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)