Teaching geography step 1: Find globe

[Qingdai]

Obviously Kiddo is an anarchist, "The map is not the country."

[Janet]

In case you need some musical accompaniment, here's one of my favorite singers. The album is called No Borders Here, but I can't remember if this is the song where she uses that line or not.

Jane Siberry - Map of the World

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[SR71]

At the risk of getting stereotypy reinforcing, maybe start trying to get linked associations with the spot on the map and common cultural references? It's just an idea...

[Janet]

My nephew had some sort of interactive map game when he was little, maybe this one. Had all his state capitals memorized at two, maybe four, I can't remember. We all worried that my sister was going to be one of those freakishly pushy moms, but they eased off after a bit.

I think they had a globe too, with a stylus that you touched to the country to learn facts about it. We liked to play with that one almost as much as he did. The ones I see are all really pricey, though. I should just steal my sister's and send it to you, now that he's too old for it.

[Ymir's blood]

Originally Posted by lisarea

I have a globe in the living room that's from like 1950 or something,

Is it in black and white?

[Ensign Steve]

Also, I always wished I had one of those Geochron map/clock things like this:



I remember seeing one in the gift shop at the California Science Center and coveting it but it was hella expensive.

[Ensign Steve]

Ooooh! Oooh! Or if he's into space stuff or whatever, there are more fun ways to pull in the astronomy angle.

Like Kyuss Apollo's videos or the phases of the moon.

Why are the constellations different throughout the year?

Why does Australia have the Southern Cross on their flag?

How does the tilt of the earth make seasons? (is it summer or winter in Australia?)

[Demimonde]

I had one of these guys when I was five. That would have been shortly after I was diagnosed with dyslexia. I had a really hard time with directions, even though I had a really good grasp on spatial relations in my visible surroundings. So like the test questions where shapes were transposed I could figure out easily, but if you asked me which was on the right I would just stare blankly at you. In learning my ABC's d's and b's looked exactly the same to me, and if someone tried to tell me that the "b faces right" it made no sense at all. Anything spatial that was abstract or conceptual just confused and frustrated me.

I used my globe as a night light and played with it a lot with my mom. It wasn't very accurate or precise, I think they only had the capital city listed and no others, but for global concepts it was great. The eye piece slid down the arm and if you lined it up with these white circles, you would have pictures of the people and places around the world illuminated in the viewfinder. It really, really helped me to understand the concept of how the world was. All these different countries I had heard about were all laid out just so, and if you looked really close you can see the people living down there. It finally made sense then. I remember it started a flurry of expeditions to the library to look at books of the different countries so I could find them on my globe.

By the time I was in first grade or so, when the teacher started a section on the continents I knew and could name them all, well ahead of my classmates. I could even draw my own maps of the world. That occurs to me now, shortly after we got it my mom would have me draw the countries on the globe in relation to each other. Then we would talk about it and label it together, since I couldn't read when I got it. I am sure they were massive squiggly blobs that had little resemblance to the actual countries, but by talking with me I could point to one on the globe and then to my picture and we could figure it out together. Then label the next one and so on. Then we would talk about which was north and east of each other and stuff. Once I was essentially writing my own maps, reading them was no problem.

It is funny, to this day I still have issues with right and left if I am not concentrating, but the cardinal directions stick with me. Drives my friend crazy when I give her directions because she can never get them straight. Which usually goes into a lecture about how the San Bushmen in Africa have no language for the concepts of right and left and refer to everything by cardinal points and they are some of the most skilled guides in the world, so shut up.

In terms of using old out of date stuff, I dunno. I remember when I took Geography in HS, the first day the teacher had us turn to the back of the book and update the world map. Two countries had changed their names in the six months since the book was published. I remember feeling a thrill as I wrote in a brand new book that had not even been opened before me. It was a great lesson on how quickly things change.

I also had heaps of old out of date stuff when I was younger. World Book Encyclopedias from the fifties and sixties that were hilariously dated, and just piles of books from all eras that were full of great information and stuff that was just so, so, hilariously wrong. I think overall having those helped me intellectually to never trust my sources completely and to look for others too. My dad always playing devil's advocate was another. So I wouldn't worry too much about that.

For centuries some of the greatest thinkers have been learning with massively out-of-date materials and it didn't hamper their development. If anything, I think our reliance today on everything being totally up to date is a hindrance. When a wiki can be rewritten five times a day, we shouldn't trust it is wholly accurate. Yet people are much more likely today to swallow every letter they read as whole truth.

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by But

Did you know that the earth is approximately flat? A disc, in essence? Walk along the horizon and you'll notice. The horizon is a "tangential plane". In any number of dimensions. It's a single path. Nothing but frequencies and phase shifts. And a lot of CNOT gates.

And time is a cube?

[Ymir's blood]

I grew up with a 60's set of World Book as well. Demi!

[Janet]

Me, too, but I was born in 1967, so I have a better excuse. We did get the yearbooks for a while, at least until part way through my grade school years.

[Ymir's blood]

I was born in '70.

[Ymir's blood]

We should form the Secret Society of Sixties World Book Havers!

[Janet]

Do we get to be hipsters about it and look down on all the World Book latecomers?

[Ymir's blood]

Yeah, as long as we keep it a secret.

[Dingfod]

From about the 3rd grade through the 6th grade I created dossiers on various countries in the world quite like the CIA Factbook using information gleaned from Encyclopaedia Americana. We didn't get World Book until the 1970 edition came out.

[beyelzu]

Globes rule, but please get one that is smooth, cuz the atmosphere is thinner than the veneer of a globe proportionally.

Or, to paraphrase, Tyson, if you held the smoothest billiard ball in the world in one hand and in the other you held the earth. The earth would be smoother.

[Dingfod]

I always liked the textured globes, the ones with mountain ranges raised, very tactile.

[Watser?]

I had one of those when I was a kid.

[Kyuss Apollo]

Originally Posted by Ymir's blood

We should form the Secret Society of Sixties World Book Havers!

I havers a set of World Book encyclopedias from 1992. Cost stupid money back then. But I didn't have to take classes to the library to do geography projects so I figured it would be would be worth 1/4 of my monthly wages att.

[Clutch Munny]

I'm still stuck on that there's no place in your town that sells globes.

[livius drusus]

[Kyuss Apollo]

Originally Posted by Ymir's blood

We should form the Secret Society of Sixties World Book Havers!

A dream is born!

[Crumb]

NOT SO SECRET!

[Ymir's blood]

He knows too much.