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With free online courses from Coursera and EdX, you can expand your horizons from wherever you are. (As far as geography, philosophy, and world affairs go, Coursera has the better selection.) Examples coming up soon:
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In order to disrupt transnational criminal organizations, it is necessary to understand who controls which territories and trafficking routes. This map, from Business Insider based on data from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, shows which Mexican cartels control which geographic sections of the U.S. drug trade. The Sinaloa cartel (named for its home base in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, on Mexico's Pacific coast, across the Sea of Cortez from the tip of Baja) is orange on this map and the dominant player in the U.S. drug trade. www.businessinsider.com/dea-maps-of-mexican-cartels-in-the-us-2016-12
Fragile states -- those countries most at risk for collapse due to internal conflicts, poverty, violence, demographic pressures, and weak governance -- generally exhibit the most dire need for international aid. Yet the dilemma for international aid experts and donor countries is that international aid can be of questionable value when provided to fragile states. A new study from the Brookings Institution tries to tease apart the characteristics of effective aid practices in fragile states: https://www.brookings.edu/research/aid-effectiveness-in-fragile-states/
This remarkable interactive mapping tool shows the real-time air quality index (AQI) anywhere in the world: https://airvisual.com/earth
My students know (I hope) that if we were to walk from the U.S. to South America, Colombia would be the first South American country we would reach. But few Americans have an appreciation for how big Colombia is. This map tries to provide some perspective by fitting a number of more familiar countries and U.S. states -- including Germany, Florida, Switzerland, Austria, and New Jersey -- into Colombia.
https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/l/t1.0-9/15780929_1349460508431027_2380957439267568808_n.jpg?oh=308f45d0bf4e73e71b70ec460b493f14&oe=58E20FAC Computational linguistics applies the ideas of two overlapping fields of philosophy: the philosophy of language and logic. The philosophy of language considers the question, "How does meaning emerge from a string of words or symbols?" Computational linguistics involves decoding a string of unfamiliar words or symbols to deduce their meaning. Anyone can try their hand at computational linguistics by working the practice puzzles from the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad. Middle and high school students who discover they have an affinity for solving computational linguistics puzzles can register to take the written NACLO exam at a variety of locations later this month. nacloweb.org/practice.php#sample_problems
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Blog sharing news about geography, philosophy, world affairs, and outside-the-box learning
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