Geography's hard, let's do physics

it's a small world
Originally uploaded by frerieke.

"As a scholar, I wanted to study Geography. However, upon examination of the subject matter, I found it too difficult and reluctantly turned my attention to the study of Physics" - Albert Einstein


(possible correction)

Slipping past another marker on the orbital calendar

This is the September equinox. I grew up calling it the Autumnal Equinox, but having traveled in the Southern Hemisphere now, I'm going to have to go with the global flow and call it the September Equinox. Here in central California, summer has been droughty, not as hot as it can be, but with some sizzling days. As much as that autumn is still dry most of the time, and grasses turn from gold to brown, I welcome it. I welcome the shifting of the stars, the return of Orion to prominence. I welcome being able to sleep at night without tossing and turning on top of the blankets in a sweat. I welcome the buckeyes falling from the buckeye tree next door. This year I intend to plant quite a lot of them in cans, to keep the species going through habitat loss.

Points along the path as the earth turns aren't part of a religion for me. I notice the Pagan and Christian, and sometimes other markers for stops along the seasonal paths, but I don't notice them in terms of gods or goddesses or the supernatural.



They keep my eyes and ears open.

They tie me to the earth, and that's important for me. Keeping my awareness on the planet (and the universe) that, probably without even knowing it, keeps conditions so that I can live the life I live now, helps me remember that one of my responsibilities is to care for it. One reason I like geography is that it's about something, some place, I love -- and if we love something, why wouldn't we want to learn more about it and take care of it?

Not only does the Time and Date link have a great explanation of how and why the equinox is what it is, it's full of more awesome links to information and fun.

Today, I'm heading out into the garden to separate the green-bin pruning from the compost-pile pruning, to pull down the remains of the corn, harvest some potatoes, sort out some pole-bean seeds for saving (and feed the rest to the chickens), and start preparing the planting beds for fall's parsnips, spinach, lettuce, carrots, and sugar snap peas.



Photos thanks to Wolfgang Staudt and kganes via Flickr's creative commons search.

Geography as a fascinating and relevant subject

The youtube account holder is "geogfilms," so I expect enthusiasm and lack of objectivity. ;)

finding like minds

cross geo, clibberswick 23
Originally uploaded by biotron.

The most useful source I've found for finding real geographiles on Twitter is to use the Geonerd hashtag.

Anyone proudly using that one (or spreading geonerd jokes, and "you know you're a geonerd when....") is someone I'll probably enjoy getting to know.

http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23geonerd

oh the places you'll go

Mary Agnes Chase (1869-1963),
sitting at desk with specimens
Originally uploaded by Smithsonian Institution.

I'd gotten frustrated at my local community college for running out of classes I need to take, and want to take, this year. You see, I (*sigh*) procrastinated finishing my application for the local Cal State university geography program long enough that the state budget crisis interfered, and the university system decided not to admit any more applicants this school year for winter and spring quarters. This means I can't take classes, unless I'm willing to pay a lot for Open University classes (and there's room in them, unlikely given that cuts also reduced the total number of classes), until next fall.

So I'm trying to fill my year with classes that I don't need (as there are no more lower division classes that I need, period, ever) but that will be fascinating and most important, useful, both in my classes once I do get to the university, and in my career after that.

The community college where I'd been finishing geography (required) and astronomy (fun!) classes had run out of things for me. So I poked around.

And wow - it turns out another local community college has so many classes I could get a second AA (hush, I won't ... or will I?) before going on.

Check this out, classwise:

Environmental writing (I'm not sure if this is a study of environmental literature or learning how to write about it, and I don't care! Whee!)
Early childhood environmental education
Intro to creek watershed restoration
American Indian history and culture
Civilization's impact on the environment: psychology of trashing the earth
Environmental racism and justice
Natural History field classes (a few courses: local herpetology, local ornithology, Monterey Bay, Devil's Postpile)
Habitat Restoration Gardening
Wildlife and watershed
Contemporary Native Americans in the bay area
Permaculture design

I'm just blissed out, here. And that doesn't even count GIS and Spanish.

I can't take them all, but there are enough that I can fill my year with fun.

obsessive geography brain

I was poking through Grant Imahara's stuff on Twitpic, and found this bridge photo. It's a "from the set" photo, so I assume it's in California, though it might not be. It has California native palms, though Washingtonia palms are used in landscaping so they're everywhere now. It's recent, so it's not the new Zampa bridge being built at Carquinez Strait, right? And it doesn't look like Carquinez Strait anyhow. Where are other steel truss bridges that high in California? What's going on behind it, are they working on a new bridge?

I'm going to poke around online until I find it or can't justify not getting up to plan for a trip we're headed out on soon. (I'll take pics, I could just turn Geographile into a vacation pictures journal. Wouldn't that be fun. :) )

In the meantime, if you know where this picture was taken, please let me know. This isn't a Mythbusters fan thing, it's a MUST KNOW GEOGRAPHY thing. It's an obsession. Clicking through on the picture will make it bigger for you.

(edited to add: Old span of Bay Bridge with new one under construction behind it. I see this a few times a week. But the scale seemed all wrong to me, this seemed much too small for it. Also, I didn't recognize the foreground, which is probably in Alameda or along the Oakland waterfront. Thanks to Paul and Bill for nudges.)

Edited again, July 24: DUH! Casey pointed out that I could have the direction completely wrong, and I did. Google maps confirms it's along Avenue N in the northeast corner of Treasure Island, in the middle of San Francisco Bay.

geography matters

I really like this photo. I wonder where it was taken, and why the banner was there:

stretching the bounds of geographilia

I know this blog is about geography. Every so often I grumble about what the outside edges of "geography" are. It's a broad subject, indeed. Human geography is huge and vague around the edges, physical geography is only slightly more concrete. I love the range of the science.

It really doesn't include astronomy, and I battle with that in my brain, because astronomy fascinates me too.

Steph gets around it with her blog title, Adventures in Earth and Space, as she's a geologist who works with NASA.

I throw up my hands here, I don't care, because I want to share with you these children's drawings:


Astronomy des petites - Kids' astronomy

I do not promise I will never say anything about astronomy again.

(click through the photo to see the whole set on flickr)

Girl Scouts are geographiles

2009-05-18 Rachel showing USGS stuff to Girl Scouts (6)
Originally uploaded by juverna.

Here's why Girl Scouts rock, among other reasons.

Rachel (in 4th grade) was among the friends I went to the USGS open house with. She collected a bunch of material -- geologic maps, mineral posters, bookmarks, stamps, anything sciencey and interesting -- at the open house, and showed it to her Girl Scout friends, and they were fascinated.

Rachel is a science geek, and an interesting kid. Her Girl Scout friends rock.

There are a lot of good reasons for girls to participate in Scouting, if they can find a good troop:

• Girl Scouts don't require religious attachment or belief.


• Girl Scouts encourage girls to be bold and adventurous, to be smart, and independent.


• Girl Scouts have fun.


• Girl Scouts don't discriminate on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.


• Girl Scouts work on environmental awareness.


• Girl Scouts learn science.

What else rocks about Girl Scouting?

Random stack of books?

Well ... Semi-random.

These are on my official Geography Table, thus the subject matter. But books like these comprise maybe 20% of my entire large book collection.



When I get my geopictures on the wall behind the table, I'll take books and blog about my geography table specifically, and why it's special. I just snapped this picture a minute ago and figured I'd share.

The Geography of the Jesusita Fire

Large Flames of Jesusita Fire
Originally uploaded by artgalgenius.

Of all the fire articles I've read in a long time, this one caught my interest differently than the others, and I read it with a fresher eye.

Ray Ford's article in the Santa Barbara Independent looks a little at the rugged residents and the rock-tough firefighters, but it also touches on the wind, the topology, the vegetation, and other things that drive a fierce wildfire in California's chapparal.

This is geography. It's not just about what burns, or why, but about how it all works together, and anyone
who really wants to study fires, damage prevention, and effective fire-fighting in California probably knows all of this:

"Then without warning, the wind shifted, catching everyone by surprise. The shift was sudden and intense. Within a minute it switched from a 10-to-15MPH steady uphill breeze to 50MPH storm force winds heading directly down canyon."

And that, yesterday, is why the apparently mild-mannered Jesusita Fire went crazy, and is still out-of-control along Santa Barbara's northern flanks. The mandatory evacuation order includes areas just north and west of Santa Barbara's downtown. Flickr has plenty of pictures so far.

Google Maps has some LA Times coverage including where homes have burned, and links to stories.

Phoebe and Sophie are geographiles

And they want you to know why they think geography is important:



I really love student videos. :D

Witnessing for ... Geohovah?

I used to know someone who kept a stack of books -- KJV (which he'd read through, and studied), probably the Jerusalem Bible, books on Paganism, the Book of Mormon, Buddhist texts, all sorts of things -- in a stack on the table next to the front door. He was an obsessive reader of psychology and theology, and every time something caught his eye at a book sale, he'd bring it home, and devour it. When folks wanted to come in and talk religion, he could do that, and did, and would sit them down for an hour or more to discuss things they weren't always ready to discuss. He'd pick up his books and leaf through until he found a relevant passage, read it, and bring it into the conversation. The proselytizers never managed to convert him from basic agnosticism, but it passed the time for him, and he liked meeting new people.

If this Geohovah's Witness guy showed up at my door, I'd take him to my special geography table and show him my atlases, geography texts, books about water policy and fire control in chaparral and bird identification and food politics in developing nations and plate tectonics and biodiversity, and of course, offer him coffee and cookies and we'd chat.

I must sound like him sometimes. I can't drive down Mission Bl. through Hayward, in California, without pointing out the Hayward Fault scarp. I can't be along the marine terraces of Highway 1 without explaining how they were formed. I especially can't see serpentine soil (or serpentinite) without getting into a discussion about its formation and ecology.

Water towers in Alameda County -- the kinds that used to sit in back yards, and hold water pumped up from the ground with windmills, for the households -- fascinate me endlessly. Can I control my urge to tell people about them, if they don't already know? No, not really.

I am a geography evangelist. I think I must annoy my friends sometimes. They say they don't mind, but I wonder.

(This sounds like I don't get the point of the video. I do, it just got me musing.)

savoring the world, for now

When you're humming down a railway line in Germany, and you see the most intense rainbow you've ever seen before, what else is there to do but to take a picture through the grubby train window?


by @cosmos4u

I arise every morning torn between the desire to save the world and the desire to savor the world. It makes it hard to plan the day.
  -E B White

Philippine geography

Trying to come up with something important to say and all that occurs to me is "it's neat to hear the three languages work together like that."

Lilly the map kid

I've read so much about Lilly, and whether she's just parroting information, or really "knows" this stuff. What is knowing, when it comes to labels? Aren't we parroting, too? Does it matter, if she's learning to be fascinated by maps?

Geographilia as a calling

DSCN1943
Originally uploaded by gman8.

In the early nineties, I took a geography lab from the best geography teacher I’ve ever had, at the best community college I’ve ever attended.

The class was sheer fun. For our first field trip, he asked us each to find cross country skis or snow shoes, then brought us up to Lassen Park in April, when the road was still closed by deep snow. We’d spent some time learning how to take field notes, find directions, and other elements of geography field work, and when we arrived at the park, someone asked, “Is there anything special we should be noting?” He replied, “No, really, I just wanted you to see what Lassen is like before the road opens.”

It was quiet, and everything was white. The fumaroles steamed from underneath the snow. He warned us about the hollows that melted out around the fumaroles, capped by snow, and told us about participating in the rescue (because he works in Lassen back country rescue, did then, still does) of a man who had fallen face down into a pit, and would suffocate down there if someone couldn’t get their face down there and provide him some rescue breathing until help could arrive to pull him out, which was considerably later.

He pointed out mountain chickadees by their calls, and explained the geology of the mountain. The joy he felt in this snowy park – his place, which he knew intimately, and wanted to share with us – was palpable to the point of magic.

Everything about that class, and its prerequisite basic physical geography classroom course, seemed to be because the teacher thought it was cool, that he wanted us to see these neat things he thought were cool. From him I learned how rare the Mediterranean climate type is, and he shared with us that he first settled in the Sacramento Valley, in the sixties, because he crossed the Sierra and saw a redwood tree and a palm tree growing side by side, and was charmed. When we learned about weather patterns over and currents within the ocean, he told us about his summer fishing in Ireland, when a hurricane in the Caribbean managed to send lobster pots up the Irish rivers. He spent a big part of one class playing us an NPR show about people who had been struck by lightning and survived.

That magic hooked me. That magic sucked me into geography as a field, something I could do, rather than a dry high school course where we figured out adiabatic cooling rates.

Geographiles would be a lot better off if more people who are captivated by the magic would actually teach it, write about it, and share what we love. Perhaps that’s a call to action.

Ian's bedroom

Ian's bedroom
Originally uploaded by kbreenbo.

When I was little -- and I was little, very small for my age -- I would lie on my belly on the floor and read our huge National Geographic atlas. I have a more recent edition now, and it seems big, but not gigantic. When I was small, the atlas was gigantic. It was out of date, but I read it cover to cover. (Later, in the map geography component of ninth-grade social studies, I was puzzled at some of the changes. It hadn't occurred to me before that the map I learned when I was on my belly reading the atlas at age 4 wasn't static, aside from the big changes of the world wars that my mother pointed out.) I loved reading the legends and finding out where paper was made, and sheep were raised. I loved trying to figure out city populations from the sizes of the dots. We had a globe with a relief surface, I would run my fingers over the mountains with my eyes closed.

As an adult, I still love maps and atlases and globes, and as an educator, I have loved introducing them to children. I like to leave Me on the Map around a classroom, along with basic atlases (chosen according to the age of the child with durability in mind, if nothing else). For kids of kindergarten age, I like to draw small maps with them, of the playground, or the classroom, or even items on a table. From there, the street can be mapped, or the block, or a neighborhood, labeled with places important to the children.

It's not important exactly how they're introduced, except that materials are left around with ready access (inflatable globes are cheap and fun), and that the children's interests lead the way.

When I saw this picture, "Ian's Bedroom," I immediately wanted to be four, and to have wallpaper like this in my own room. I wouldn't paper a classroom like this (too busy, especially if the kids' own artwork is displayed), but I'd certainly paper a rec room or a bedroom or a cafeteria with this wonderful giant map.