Tag: trains

Current Event Connection, Main

Getting on Board with Amtrak

UNITED STATES Trains are different than planes. Yet at some high-traffic stations, the boarding process is strangely, mysteriously, similar. (Vox) Use our resources to engineer better access to public transportation. Discussion Ideas Read through the fun Vox article. (Keep in mind that a “queue” is a line of people waiting their turn, and “queuing” simply means “lining up.”) Why is the boarding process for a … Continue reading Getting on Board with Amtrak

carylsueLeave a comment
Classroom Ideas

MapMaker Interactive Part 2: East Asia at Night

Lhasa2.JPG
China highlighted in MapMaker Interactive. If you can’t have trouble reading the labels, the red line is the approximate area of Tibet, and the brown area points to Lhasa. The yellow label on the top right identifies Beijing

In the last post we started using MapMaker Interactive– a free mapping tool on the National Geographic Education website– to explore just two of its thematic layers: Lights at Night and Population Density. As promised, this post will take you to deeper into the data to show how MapMaker can reveal patterns, anomalies, and–I would argue–stories about the planet and the people on it. 
Now, scroll over to East Asia. First, look at the Lights at Night layer and quiz yourself: What is that isolated bright dot in southwestern China? If you guessed it is the lights of Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, you’re correct. The city has been heavily developed by the Chinese government in recent years. For more, see these articles on the Tibetan railway by the BBC and China’s Xinhua (disclaimer: Xinhua is a government-run news source).

Continue reading “MapMaker Interactive Part 2: East Asia at Night”

ngeducationintern1 Comment