Jun

01st 2008

Grand Tour of Rome

Filed Under Cartography, Europe | Leave a Comment

University of Oregon recently announced the unveiling of “Grand Tour of Rome”, an interactive mapping web site that takes the visitor back to 18th century Rome.  The project is the culmination of a two-year grant from the Getty Foundation:

“Imago Urbis: Giuseppe Vasi’s Grand Tour of Rome” presents an innovative geographic database and Web site that brings to life the work of two 18th century masters of Rome’s urban and architectural treasures: Giambattista Nolli (1701-1756), who published the first accurate map of Rome (La Pianta Grande di Roma, 1748); and his contemporary, Giuseppe Vasi (1710-1782), whose comprehensive views of the city and its monuments from 1747-1761, can be precisely located and explored by using the Nolli map as a reference.

Visit:

Dec

17th 2007

Can Posh and Becks Make Geography Interesting?

Filed Under Education, Europe | Leave a Comment

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in the United Kingdom certainly thinks so.  Charged with developing the National Curriculum, the governing body is urging teachers of grade level students to “use music, films and soaps as an accessible, contemporary and different source of geographical information.”  Examples provided on the web site to make geography lessons more appealing is the use of David and Victoria Beckham’s family to understand socioeconomic decisions, watching mob movies to understand the geographic differences between north and south Italy, and Disney movies to understand biodiversity.  The suggestions have been heavily criticised by many as patronizing and representing a dumbing down of geography.  Chris Woodhead, Ofsted’s former chief inspector of schools, accused the QCA of “dumbing down” the “intelligence, challenge and excitement” of geography.  Alan Smithers, professor of education at Buckingham University, added: “What would excite young people is gaining a growing interest in the world. They can’t do this when they’re being patronised and talked down to.”

Read more:

Dec

13th 2007

Vita è bella Not So For Italians

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A study by Italian economist, Luisa Corrado, found Italians to be the least happiest of 15 Western European nations (Denmark was ranked the happiest ).  An article in the New York Times details the decline of the Italian way of life.  Eleven percent of Italians live in poverty and 15% have trouble making their salaries cover their monthly expenses.  An aging population combined with a low birthrate contribute to the economic woes of Italy and its ability to compete on a global level.  Mario Adinolfi, a thirty-six year old blogger quips, “We don’t have a Google.  We can’t imagine in Italy that a 30-year-old opens a business in a garage.”

Dec

03rd 2007

Free Maps for UK School Kids

Filed Under Education, Europe | Leave a Comment

Below is an interesting press release from the Ordnance Survey (Great Britain). Accompanying this effort to provide free maps to all of the students is an educational site called Mapzone. Mapzone has some great content including introductory text on GIS, geography games, trivia, and more.

Press Release:

Ordnance Survey’s offer of a free map for every year 7 pupil in Great Britain has seen increased take-up this year, challenging fears of a decline in the popularity of geography as a school subject.

More than 9 out of 10 local authority schools will receive free maps, up 2% from last year, with nearly 700,000 children benefiting. It means that 4.4 million maps will have been distributed since the initiative began in 2002.

Read more

Sep

28th 2007

New Euro coin leaves Turkey off the map

Filed Under Current Events, Europe | Leave a Comment

The design of the new two Euro coin has caused a stir after Turkey is markedly absent from the map while parts of Belarus and Russia are included.  Charges of politics have arisen as an argument for why Turkey was not included despite the intentions of the European Commission to portray a larger map on the coin.  In defense, commission spokesperson Amelia Torres stated “The idea was to have a new design that would be a more stylised design, rather than a true geographical representation of Europe, which admittedly is more difficult to represent on such a small surface.”  The possible admission of Turkey to full European Union membership has been a point of contention with countries such as France in opposition. 

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Source: EUObserver.com ~ Turkey cut out of new euro coin map

Sep

15th 2007

Energy Conservation Through Peer Pressure

Filed Under Europe, Map Servers, Urban Geography | Leave a Comment

Haringey Council (located in London, England), is using heat mapping to highlight energy inefficient homes within their jurisdiction. The city council hired an aircraft fitted with a thermal imager to fly over all the homes in the jurisdiction to capture heat loss. The houses were then color coded based on a heat loss scale with bright red for the highest level of heat loss and bright blue indicating the lowest loss of heat. All of the data is available online for the public to see. Any visitor to the Haringey Interactive Heat Loss Map can hover their mouse over individual homes to get the address. The hope of the council is that a public display will shame some homeowners into insulating their homes to bring down heat loss. The original thermal mapping was down back in 2000 but new flights were taken this past March and now a 2000 and 2007 version of the heat loss map are available from the Home Heat Loss page of the Haringey Council web site. If the side by side comparison (see below) is any indicator, the heat loss map is making a difference in the reduction of energy loss in at least some of the homes. The mapping and processing was done by www.hotmapping.co.uk.

Year 2000:

heatloss2000.png


Year 2007:

heatloss2007.png

Sep

07th 2007

Wiki City Rome

Filed Under Europe, GPS | Leave a Comment

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced the debut on September 8th of “Wiki City Rome“, a project that “uses data from cellphones and other wireless technology to illustrate the city’s pulse in real time.”  The project will provide anybody with access to the Internet a real time peek into Rome, showing movement of crowds, location of buses and trains and locations of notable Romans.  The geographic data will be compiled anonymously from cell phones, GPS devices from buses and taxis and other wireless sources.

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