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The final Jurassic Park movie may have been disappointing, but venture capital money continues to pour into scientific ventures related to de-extinction and other use of genetic material from extinct creatures. This recording of a webinar sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences provides an excellent look at the complex scientific and philosophical issues surrounding de-extinction: scienceandentertainmentexchange.org/blog/back-from-the-dead-the-difficulties-and-dilemmas-of-de-extinction/
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If you're looking for a bit of summer learning fun, Google Earth's Carmen Sandiego game takes students around the world, using clues to solve a crime while seeing some of the world's most iconic landforms and structures in 3D:
earth.google.com/web/data=CiQSIhIgYmU3N2ZmYzU0MTc1MTFlOGFlOGZkMzdkYTU5MmE0MmE I was cleaning out some old papers in my office and came across this rather stunning map I had saved from 2014 showing that, as of 2013, median household income in the U.S. had peaked at least 15 years earlier in 81 percent of U.S. counties. The interactive map at The Washington Post website allows users to mouse over counties for specific data: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-stat/graphics/business/income/index.html
If you're looking for something to add to your podcast line up, "The Philosopher's Zone" from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is a 30-minute dive into a different philosophical topic each week: www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/ "The Philosopher's Zone" should be available wherever you get your podcasts.
Reporters Without Borders has released its 2022 assessment of press freedom in 180 countries and territories. Notably, Central and South America saw serious declines in press freedoms over the last year, with Honduras, Nicaragua, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Colombia, and Venezuela all dropping at least 11 (and as many as 39) positions in global rankings. Users can mouse over the map for details or click on the "Analyses 2022" for details: rsf.org/en/index
Thinking ahead to your summer reading list? You can test your knowledge of classic literature by matching characters to novels with this 35-question quiz: play.howstuffworks.com/quiz/can-you-name-which-literary-classic-these-characters-are-from
You can design your own opera using "Hansel and Gretel" as the template to learn about what goes into staging an opera with this interactive module from Go Classical: goclassical.org/kids/opera/opera-game
Even though continued labor shortages are giving employees the best leverage in a generation to raise their wages, the federal minimum wage remains at $7.25 per hour, meaning that many employees, especially in specific parts of the country, are still making less than $15 per hour and are particularly vulnerable to inflation driving up the costs of food and fuel. This interactive map from the British anti-poverty organization Oxfam shows the fraction of each state's labor force earning less than $15 per hour and allows users to also slice stats by race, gender, age, and marital status. www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/countries/united-states/poverty-in-the-us/low-wage-map-2022/
HHMI Biointeractive has hundreds of free online activities to enrich life science learning, including this new one for high school students that uses data science to understand island biogeography: www.biointeractive.org/classroom-resources/exploring-island-biogeography-through-data
Because of the inherent problems trying to convert a 3D planet to a 2D visualization, mapmakers' projections all tend to distort the sizes, shapes, and positions of landmasses in various ways. This website allows users to choose a country and then superimpose it over another area to get a better sense for relative size and how size is frequently distorted as one moves toward the poles: thetruesize.com (Just for kicks, move Russia to the equator, for example.)
Climate Central is a US-based nonprofit using science, big data, and proprietary machine-learning mapping to identify coastal areas likely to be underwater or subject to frequent flooding by 2050. According to Climate Central's interactive map, hard-hit areas in Ireland are likely to be Dublin's waterfront and sections of southwestern Ireland, including Shannon's airport and parts of Limerick and County Clare. coastal.climatecentral.org/  War is bad for landscapes and cultural preservation. Ukraine has 7 sites that have been designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites and another 17 sites that are on a tentative list for prospective inclusion. To find out more about each of these sites, you can click on the site names or locations on this interactive UNESCO map: whc.unesco.org/en/statesparties/UA
Wordle is the game of the moment. The game combines the word play of hangman with the deductive logic game Mastermind. Players have six chances to figure out the day's five-letter word. www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/
Start the new semester with a geography quiz: identify a country based on three cities and an image. (This starts easy and gets harder.) play.howstuffworks.com/quiz/if-you-can-name-2525-of-these-countries-from-just-three-cities-youre-a-geography-genius
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime has prepared a Global Organized Crime Index. The index's mapping tool allows users to select for specific categories of crime (e.g., human trafficking, synthetic drugs, arms trafficking) as well as resilience factors (e.g., victim and witness support, international cooperation, government transparency). ocindex.net/
How hard is it to achieve zero emissions? Try it yourself with this free online game, in which you are the mayor of Smogtown. Your goal is to achieve zero emissions while retaining enough popularity to remain the mayor :-). The game's decision points include information about what real-life cities in your position have tried and learned. www.bloomberg.com/features/2021-net-zero-mayor-game/
This animated cartogram, based on NASA satellite data, shows the earth's carbon capture via terrestrial plant production throughout the year: worldmapper.org/natures-heartbeat
One of the upsides of the pandemic is that the National Archives is one of many institutions still offering most of its events online, allowing history lovers from anywhere to partake. This month, for example, the National Archives is hosting author talks discussing British blockade runners during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln's relationship with Black people, and the "first civil war" between patriots and loyalists during the American Revolution as well as programs about the U.S. Constitution for elementary school students and a living history portrayal of Frederick Douglass. To register (for free) see www.archives.gov/calendar (Prior events available on the National Archives' YouTube channel.)
Want to practice your map-labeling skills? ThatQuiz has short map-labeling exercises for Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. ThatQuiz also has options to practice math, science, and foreign language vocabulary skills. www.thatquiz.org/
Released earlier this month, this animation illustrating comparative ocean depths is worth checking out: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5C7sqVe2Vg A few months ago, the Chinese Communist party celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding. This GIF maps the global spread, and decline, of Communism for a slightly different 100-year interval, from 1917 to 2017: www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/pvx2s5/rise_and_fall_of_communism/
Earlier this week researchers announced the completion of the Allen Coral Atlas, the first ever interactive mapping tool of the world's shallow coral reefs. Building on the work of more than 450 research teams and nearly 2 million satellite images, the atlas is named for the late Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen who was an early supporter of the project. allencoralatlas.org/atlas/#6.00/20.1359/-155.5908
Think you know Africa? Take this quiz from Britannica to find out: www.britannica.com/quiz/geography-of-africa-quiz Be sure to click on "results" afterwards for more information about each answer. (There is one major typo, and one question seems to not match up with the answers.)
I have shared this site before, but I think it's worth doing again. Ventusky feeds real-time data into its system to create interactive weather maps showing temperature, precipitation, wind speed, snow cover, and more. In the fall, because the Atlantic hurricane season continues through the end of November, Ventusky allows users to watch potential storm systems develop off West Africa and move across the Atlantic. www.ventusky.com/
Adults and teens (APUSH students?) interested in expanding their knowledge of history, particularly U.S. history, might want to check out "15 Minute History," the history podcast series from the University of Texas at Austin. Although not every episode is equally good, the series does a good job of bringing to the fore some of the lesser-known stories of U.S. history. The podcast is available from wherever you get your podcasts; the website offers supplementary material for each episode. 15minutehistory.org/
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Blog sharing news about geography, philosophy, world affairs, and outside-the-box learning
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