Show me a man whose favorite game is Risk, and I’ll show you a man who’s never played Settlers. With those words, my dear friend Colin kicked off a round of the board game, Settlers of Catan. I didn’t know this game existed until last year, when my former roommate Dan (also a geo-nerd) introduced it to me. I’m not sure how I managed to graduate … Continue reading A Resource Management Lesson: Settlers of Catan
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To help with our celebration of human cultures, Shawn Parell, communications associate with the UN Foundation’s Sustainable Development group, explains why World Heritage sites (selected for both cultural and natural values) are so important to both protect and explore–virtually or in person!
To help celebrate this
year’s Geography Awareness Week, test your geography knowledge using the
Friends of World Heritage TravelPod “How
Well Do You Know Your World” game, featured on My Wonderful World’s Geography Awareness Week website.
The game is a fun, informative (and addictive!) way to test your knowledge and
brush up on those lesser-known World Heritage sites.
Whether you have kids of
your own, or, are just a big kid yourself, promoting geography education is a
great way to learn about World Heritage sites, which span the globe and include some of the most unique
and important cultural and natural places on earth. There are 878 World Heritage sites in 145
countries around the world.
World Heritage
sites belong to all of us. Through Friends of World Heritage, you can help protect these natural and cultural
wonders of the world, explore
the majesty of these places recognized for their outstanding value to humanity,
and experience for
yourself the marvels of World Heritage. Learning more about these sites enables
people young and old to appreciate how landscapes are created, the diverse
cultures of people living around the globe, and how our actions can impact our
environment and fellow global citizens.
Continue reading “Celebrate with Friends of World Heritage!”
Some people argue that great art is inspired by
simplicity. Did you know that Beethoven’s Fifth
Symphony might have been inspired by three notes of a local bird’s song?
Well, David Matysiak is following suit by taking the kid’s game of telephone
and creating a series of musical anthologies in his Telephono project.
Telephono is a fun, collaborative, creative mash-up concept:
Matysiak writes an initial piece of music and sends it to a fellow musician,
who then has the freedom to change “anything or everything” about the original
version. The second musician sends it to
a third, and the chain continues. At
each stage, artists send their product back to Matysiak.
Because the process is archived at each step, a listener of
the entire process can hear the specific changes that each musician makes. What’s especially awesome about this project
is that it travels across state lines, country borders and international
oceans, showing that place can contribute to the artistic process.
Place is literally infused in some pieces of Telephono. For example, Italian musician Enrico Molteni
took a pop song sent to him from Chicago musician, Mike Kinsella, and added sounds of an Italian beach to the track. (Check out
each step of this process! From Matysiak’s first repetitive guitar riff called
“There Was No Expiration Date on the Carton of Milk That Wore My Thinning Face”
to Molteni’s re-titled pop-version “Ain’t We Superhuman”).
Continue reading ““Telephono:” The Game of Telephone Goes Global”
Reach the World, a New York-based educational non-profit recently released “GeoGames,” a series of free, interactive online activities that adopt a hands-on approach to learning geography. Supported by findings from educational research, GeoGames is distinct from other online games in its use of a 3D globe rather than the traditional 2D map. Keeping with the organization’s mission to “help elementary and secondary school students and … Continue reading “Reach the World” with GeoGames
