Week 5: September 28 to October 2

This week, we will use Google maps to look at areas that are dense forests or have desert areas. How do people and animals live in these areas? Let's discover the challenges that Western lifestyles impose on indigenous people and natural life.

Monday, September 28, 2020

The Good, the Bad, and the Western

Ever play a game of chess? If so, you know that the goal of the game is to take as many of your opponent's resources (pawns, rook, Queen) as possible so that your pieces can take over the entire board. It seems that this may be true for Western world lifestyles.

When people say Western world, they are typically speaking on the ways and ideas of people whose ancestors hailed from Europe. The United States, England, even many places throughout Asia, South America, and Africa are involved in a Western idea of life and culture because these areas of the world were largely influenced by the West when Europeans developed their first sea-worthy ships.

English colonists cut down trees and killed wild life en masse in the United States. This hurt the indigenous system of economy and infrastructure. They felt justified to cause harm to the environment and the people due to an idea they developed called Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny is the idea that Europeans had a divine right to do whatever they wanted in order to expand capitalism and their new form of democracy.

From sea to shining sea In 1845, newspaper editor John O’Sullivan coined the term “Manifest Destiny” to describe the ideology of continental expansionism.

Though the term was new, the ideas underlying it were much older, dating back to the first colonial contact between Europeans and Native Americans [in the late 1400's]. The ideology that became known as Manifest Destiny included a belief in the inherent superiority of white Americans, as well as the conviction that they were destined by God to conquer the territories of North America, from sea to shining sea. The ideology of Manifest Destiny justified extreme measures to clear the native population from the land, including forced removal and violent extermination. For proponents of Manifest Destiny, the American Indians were mere impediments to the forward march of racial and technological progress, and they advocated pursuing a policy of Indian Removal. ~ Khan Academy Article

This idea is not commonly called Manifest Destiny today, but it remains a core component to Western interactions with the world. Today, Western lifestyles are centered around capitalism, individualism, and technological advancement. In and of themselves, these ideas are not necessarily a negative thing. Today, you are charged with looking at the terms above and creating a chart to tell us what these words mean, in your own words. How are these ideas good? How could they be deficient?

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Where in the World?

Where in the World is Paji? Meet Paji (on the right). Paji is a lilac-breasted roller. Lilac-breasted rollers are colorful little birds that are from sub-Saharan Africa. Lilac-breasted rollers prefer open woodland or grassland habitats with widely scattered trees, shrubs, or poles to serve as hunting perches. They are relatively common and widespread throughout much of southern Africa, south of the Congo River basin but can be found as far north as Ethiopia in the eastern part of the continent.

They build nests in tree holes and termite mounds or take over the nests of other birds.

Paji is missing from the grassland where he lives with his three siblings. We can use some clues to find out where Paji can be found.

Read and explore the information below to find out where Paji might be.

Before we continue, let's briefly discuss fact versus opinion. You may remember that fact is an observed idea that is based in relevant and testable evidence and if the idea is related to something physical, we can test it and get the same outcome multiple times.

A major conversation today is that of world overpopulation. This is centered in a theory that too many people will take over too many of the Earth's resources. Take a look at the chess board picture from yesterday's lesson.

Since hundreds of scientists and experts have agreed that population growth may cause a problem, they are not in complete agreement as you what can be done to address the challenge. Some experts suggest that people should stop having families. However, others are looking into the reason population growth has been having a negative affect on the environment.

Western culture, through conquest and soft-power, has influenced the nations of the entire world. The ideals of individualism, capitalism, and technological advancement has simplified life for many world leaders in many ways. Economies have more than quadrupled their average growth and big cities have grown to support international businesses, energy industries, and more.

People now have state-of-the-art health facilities, high end clothing manufacturing, major movies, international travel with ease, all credited to the technological advancements that we use everyday.

Individualism also plays a role in the amazing lives modern communities share. People do what makes them feel happy. They wear the clothes that pique their interests. We style our hair, eat the foods, and live in the homes we want. All of these are amazingly awesome elements that the world has adopted and advanced through the ideology of Western culture, have some drawbacks.

At the same time, Western culture often accomplishes these amenities through violence and destruction. Those who adopt the Western ways of life also adopt the pollution caused by its industries, the wars for neighbors' resources to fuel them, and the destruction of communities attached to the idea that the part is more important than the whole.

In the World Land Use map below, we can see that it is expected that most of the land on the planet will be occupied by groups of people within the next 30 years. Why would this be a negative?

The yellow part of the map is what is considered croplands, the green is wildlands, semi-natural lands are pink, purple is rangelands orange represents villages, and the deep greenish color represents dense settlements or major city sites. If you look at the population map in the early 1700's, it shows how little land was rangelands. Rangeland is typically large areas of land owned by one person or one corporation for the purposes that serve the individual. Semi-natural lands are areas where people live together with nature and have little negative impact.

If the groups of people who possess and utilize these lands are polluting the air, water, and lands themselves to continue capitalism, individualism, and technological advancements, people will not have sufficient land to grow healthy foods, clean water to drink, or fresh air to breathe. More and more land is being used for rangelands and farming. These land types often obstruct or interfere with the natural life that exists around it. In addition to pollution from factories, people cut down miles and miles of trees. They build dams that affect freshwater animal life and the quality of the water we use to drink.

*Paji is somewhere with semi-natural lands, according to the 2016 population map.

Global Positional System was shortened to GPS. It is a technological advancement that has revolutionized the way we do almost everything. When you buy goods online, call your grandmother, go on a trip across country you or someone near you, are using the this amazing technology.

Gladys West's work was instrumental in developing the mathematics behind GPS.

Until recently, her story has remained untold.

When Mrs. West started her career at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in the US state of Virginia in 1956, just one other Black woman and two Black men worked alongside her.

"I carried that load round, thinking that I had to be the best that I could be," she says.

"Always doing things just right, to set an example for other people who were coming behind me, especially women.

"I strived hard to be tough and hang in there the best I could."

At her school, people who became top of the class were offered a scholarship to the local university.

Her family "didn't have a whole lot of money" and Mrs West knew this was her one big chance.

She worked hard, graduating first in her high school class, securing her that scholarship.

"When it was time to go to college, I didn't quite know what to major in," she says.

"They were trying to tell me, since I was good at all my subjects, that I should major in science or math or something that was more difficult and meant people didn't major in it."

The few female classmates she had went on to careers like teaching. Ms West also taught for a couple of years but her degree meant she had opportunities elsewhere too so she moved on to work at a naval base.

At the base, West was the second Black woman hired and the fourth Black employee. Another Black mathematician on base, Ira V. West, became Gladys Brown’s husband in 1957; they recently celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. West and her husband raised three children, took part in social life on the base, and attended a local Baptist church.

After some training in computer programming, West’s work at the base began with the Naval Ordinance Research Calculator (NORC). In 1962 she programmed NORC for Project 29V, which established the motion of the planet Pluto relative to Neptune, through 5 billion arithmetic calculations and 100 hours of computer calculation. In 1964 the Navy recognized Project 29V with a merit award. After that, West focused on calculations for satellite orbits.

In 1978, West was project manager for SEASAT, the first earth-orbiting satellite designed for remote sensing of the Earth’s oceans; her group used it to measure ocean depths. This project led to the GEOSAT satellite, which used SEASAT and other data to create highly accurate computer simulations of the earth’s surface. In 1986, she published a guide outlining the use of GEOSAT data for calculating geoid heights. West’s work made the accuracy of today’s GPS possible. Colleagues noted her mathematical brilliance particularly with algorithms, which created efficiencies that transformed calculation timetables.

And then Mrs. West returned to education - working towards a PhD - but suffered a stroke.

It affected her hearing, vision, balance and mobility, and left her feeling miserable.

"All of a sudden," she says, "these words came into my head: 'You can't stay in the bed, you've got to get up from here and get your PhD.'" (100 Women, 2018 A. Butterfly)

It was only when a member of her university sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, read a short biography Mrs. West had submitted for an alumni function, that her achievements were brought into the spotlight.

All of that means that Mrs. West did lots of science that tells us more about where things are and how they fit in our world.

*Paji is in the place where Gladys West was born.

Let’s explore the world. Maps are often the easiest way to see how our world was formed. Mountains, valleys, deserts, forests and plains as well as bodies of water are represented by colors and design.

On most maps, the colors used are green, blue, yellow, gray, beige and white. Gray is used to unfocus your attention on those areas. The gray or beige areas are usually surrounding the specific area that is being observed.

The yellow areas are typically areas with less forests, such as grasslands, plains, and deserts. Sometimes, the yellow only represents deserts and different shades of green may be used to show the dense forests or treeless plains.

Maps also have at least one key. A map key is a tool you can use to find out more about the symbols shown on the map. Above, the map of Ghana has 4 map keys. One map key shows where Ghana is in the African continent. Another tells about the various circle and square symbols on the map. The one with the colors show an estimate of how many meters high a land area is as compared with the ocean’s level. We see the city, Kumasi is around 200 meters above sea level.

Blue is used to show bodies of water. In this map of the United Kingdom, we can see there are three bodies of water surrounding it. The North Sea, Irish Sea, and the Atlantic ocean. We can see where certain parts of the islands of the United Kingdom are higher than sea level or lower than sea level. Where is London located on the map? If you found London you will see that London is at or below sea level.

Countries that are broken into different areas are often shown using one larger map and smaller maps to show the areas that are a part of the country but geographically separate . The map of the United States shows that the west coast of the United States is largely without plains and green lands as compared to the East. There are more mountains in the West and more plains in the East.

*Paji is in an area that borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Appalachian Mountains.

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

It's a Different World

Our world can be an amazing place. Cartographers do their best to show its physical forms. They create maps for many reasons and each of those reasons require a special type of map. There are maps that show weather patterns, landforms, nations, and even major streets. There are 6 major types of maps in cartography.

6 Different Types of Maps

1. Political Map

A political map shows the state and national boundaries of a place. A political map does not have any topographic features.
It also shows the location of cities, with respect to each other.

2. Physical Map

A physical map is one which shows the physical features of a place or country, like rivers, mountains, forests and lakes.
The physical features are usually shown in different colors.
Rivers and lakes are shown in blue, places of low elevation are shown in dark green and as the elevation increases, the color becomes light green and eventually orange.
Mountains are shown in brown.

3. Topographic Map

Topographic maps are similar to physical maps, which show the physical features of an area. Although in topographic maps, differences in elevation and changes in landscape are shown with the help of contour lines and not colors.

4. Climatic Map

A climatic map shows the information about the climate of different areas. For example it shows areas which receive more rainfall or snow, or which have dry weather.
It uses colors to depict areas with different climate.

5. Economic or Resource Map

Economic or resource maps show the different resources present in the area or economic activity prevalent.
They show the kind of crops that are grown and the minerals found in places as well as goods used in domestic and international trade.
Symbols and letters are used to depict the activity or resource present in the area.

6. Road Map

Road map is the most widely used map which shows different roads, highways or railways present in the area.
It is a very detailed map and is generally used for direction purposes.
Road maps are usually made individually, city-wise.
There are road maps present for an entire country too, but they cannot be made very detailed.

The scale of a map shows the relationship between the distances on the map with respect to actual distances on the Earth. For example if the scale of a map is 1 cm to a kilometer, that means 1 cm on the map is equivalent to 1 kilometer on actual ground. Using a scale you can quite accurately measure the distance between 2 places.

Symbols are also used on maps to represent different physical or imaginary things. For example, lines on a map often represent imaginary borders that separate countries or States on the same area of land or roads. Stars often represent State or national capitals.

If you want to grow up and become an international business person, you may study an economic or resource map. What kind of map would a pirate need to find a hidden treasure? What kind of map would your Daddy need if he were traveling to a different state?

This is Ogundele (Oh Goon DEH Leh). He is the owner of American Universal Transport Company. He recently opened his business in Nigeria as well. Ogundele does not know much about Nigeria or the types of goods that may need to transported there.

Which kind of map might be most helpful?

Meet Shatasha. She is a first year medical student at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. Her hometown is in The London Borough of Camden in England. Her flight just landed at the Nashville International Airport in Nashville, Tennessee. Shatasha has never been to the United States before. She is not sure if she should walk to the campus of her school or catch an Uber. Which kind of map will help her decide?

Product: Find out which maps Ogundele and Shatasha might use to solve the problem they are faced with. Write the map type and describe why you think they should use each type of map you've specified.

Then, create a map for either Shatasha or for Ogundele. Show the information that will be useful in resolving their challenge. Share your product in the Family World School group Facebook page or in the comments section.

Thursday, October 1, 2020

Technology and Maps

Who made the first map? Most likely, it was someone in the Nile Valley before the first major city was developed by our earliest ancestors. Someone learned about something in some distant place and drew symbols to represent the landmarks one would see on their way there.

Maps are used to share information about the physical world with others. Above, you can see an ancient map of Africa. This map was created around the late 1400's and was copied from earlier maps. People used different pictures to give more information about the people, cultures, and landmarks in certain areas.

In this map, you can see images of people who represent the cultures of the African continent. They also drew pictures of the creatures and believed creatures of the oceans.

Notice how the names of some places change. The Westward ocean was the Ethiopic Ocean. In Latin, it was called Oceanus Aethiopicus. This is because Africa as a whole was called Ethiopia. Some archiologists recognize that Africans (or Ethiopians) of these early periods may have traveled in boats through the seas surrounding the African continent. Ancient oral and written history gives accounts of seamen from West and East Africa.

At the top of the map, cartographers drew pictures of the cities within the continent. What animals can you find on the map. Can you find the compass rose?

Friday, October 2, 2020

Adventure and Discovery

Have you ever gone camping? Going from a city or house and sleeping outside in a tent for the first time or hiking on a trail you’ve never been on before will prove to introduce you to a world you’ve never known. Being outside in a new place is similar to being an adventurer who travels the world to find new discoveries.

Explorers of the past and present traveled the world and documented the things they saw in journals. Each day, they world tell about what they did and how they do it. They would explain the way the plants look different from in their own homelands and which are the same. If they meet new people, they would describe the way they look or how they dressed.

Sometimes, we think of explorers as discovers of new places. But there is nothing new under the Sun. That statement means that most of what we think is a new idea or a new discovery has been seen, thought, or done by someone before us. A perfect example of this would be Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus). People often say he discovered North America. The truth is Cristobal never touched North America and landed on an island in the Caribbean. Before him, many other Europeans, including other pirates like Vikings, came west. There is evidence of them everywhere.

Most people recognize that East Asians had come to North America on a land bridge thousands of years before. However the African explorers who came west of the Ethiopic Ocean 200 years earlier than Cristobal are not as widely talked about. Nearly the whole world had arrived to the Americas before he “discovered” the New World.

One reason African contributions to the world are not discussed very much is because in the effort make conquest seem like a good thing, some later Europeans needed to have people believe that Africans did not contribute any creativity, innovation, or ideas to the world. We will not dwell on this fact, but today, many hidden realities of history are being revealed and researched through credible sources.

European travelers after Cristobal did so with the intention to take the gold and resources of the Americas, enslave the people, and take over the land. Others often became a part of the already communities here, initiated the buying and selling of goods between continents.

One man’s New World is another man’s Dear Old Home.

Imagine you are an explorer in the South Indian Sea. The country called Madagascar is about 200 miles away. Suddenly, your ship lands on a beautiful landform that your GPS did not detect. You’ve discovered a new land!

Product: Create a map of your discovered land. Write a 3 day journal about your experiences there; the people and animals you find. What kind of plants are there? Are they edible? Will you settle this land or just witness it? Should you make friends with the people there?

Share your journal and map with FWS in the Family World School Facebook page or here in the comments below.