Drones...

This is increasingly a problem for science: there are so many great uses for drones / UAVs in research and teaching, but then there is the military side of things as well. Related: Don't Fly Drones Here!

Flooding

Here is an excellent interactive map / cartogram of flooding due to sea level rise produced by the NYT. It's simple, it's elegant, and does not overwhelm with the amount of interactivity or visual fireworks: Flooding Risk From Climate Change, Country by Country

More Carbon Maps!

This must be related to the UN Climate Summit and the People's Climate March in NYC!

• US annual household carbon emissions (UC Berkeley).
• Global carbon emissions 1997 to 2010

(Via Maps Mania)

50 States, 50 Plans

This is pretty slick: 50 States / 50 Plans is an interactive infographic that links to more infographics on renewable energy benefits - the one for Massachusetts is shown below.

Space Stuff

Orbital Objects is a neat Web GL 'map' of stuff in orbit around the Earth.

Global Carbon Emissions

Must be the recent UN meetings...there are a bunch of new interactive web-based carbon emission maps. Here are two from the World Resources Institute:

1. Total emissions 1850 to 2011
2. Per Capita emissions 1960 to 2011

This is awesome!

Check it out: Arounder

Climate Change Responsibility

This is a great interactive visualization: Carbon map - which countries are responsible for climate change? (The Guardian). In some ways this is the cooler version of Worldmapper (but Worldmapper gives you the data).

2000 carbon emissions

US Census Data Viz

The US Census Bureau is creating some pretty impressive data viz - have a look at their Data Visualization Gallery and their recent swipe-style Story Maps.

NYC Street Trees

NYC Street Trees is just that: an interactive visualization of NYC street trees. And it is a great example of a 'map' that is better not being a map, Maps are great, but not always the best or most intuitive way to visualize spatial data.

Jill Hubley created the matching map: NYC Street Trees by Species

273 Data Viz Tools

Andy Kirk compiled 273 Data Viz Tools as an interactive infograhic-like data viz, well-done! Now how do you use these great tools - how about an online course:

1. Data Visualization Fundamentals or
2. How to Process, Analyze and Visualize Data

Or, start by watching:

Priceless!

7 Things You Should Know About...

Well, at least according to Educause (keep that in mind) - otherwise 7 Things You Should Know About is a nice and quick way to learn about new academic technologies.

World Population Data Sheet 2014

Let's Doodle!

Laura Guertin has an interesting post at GeoEd Trek entitled Learning science through reading, writing… and doodling. And - why not? We already do concept mapping, mind mapping, and concept sketches - all just fancy words for doodling and there is even a YouTube channel called Doodle Science - here are some good ones:

1. Non-Renewable Energy Resources
2. Renewable Energy Resources: Part 1
3. Renewable Energy Resources: Part 2
4. Minute Earth
5. Minute Physics

And now with readily available tablet apps we can all share our doodles on a cloud-based whiteboard.

Laura included this excellent video below:

Google My Maps is back!

Google My Maps was around several years ago - a fun, simple, and somewhat buggy way to create and share personalized maps right out of Google Maps. I liked it so much that I even created two learning activities for it: Creating Personalized Maps with Google My Maps and Google My Maps: Simple Quantitative Analysis.

Then it went away somehow into the deeps of the Google 'ecosystem' and was reborn a year or two ago as Google Maps Engine Lite. But, by then there were much better options, for example ArcGIS Online by Esri.

Now there is Mapme - a fun and simple tool to create online interactive maps that are built-on Google My Maps. I'm not sure what Mapme does better than the basic Google My Maps interface (which is already about as easy as it can be).

Hurricanes 1851 - 2000

Hurricanes 1851 - 2000 is a nice and simple Google Map published by the USGS - you can interact with it, share it, embed it (see below), or open it in Google Earth, nice!

Boston Bike Network

This is a nice and simple web map - showing both the current bike routes and by moving the slider the ones planned for the next 30 years or so: Boston Bike Network Plan

Great Story Maps!

Esri compiled some great Story Maps that all include some level of actual analysis. That's always the challenge - making maps to convey beautiful information is easy, but that's a very limited application of GIS: it's about quantitative geospatial analysis...not just mash-ups.

Have a look: Speaking the “Language” of Spatial Analysis via Story Maps

122 Data Sources

Not sure why this ended at 122...but this is a good list for a data viz project: 122 Data Sources

Mapbox Studio

Looks nice - try it! Mapbox Studio
Now it can do cool Swipe-type Maps.
Me stick with Esri...

The Best Open-Source Maps!

Well, at least according to the 2014 FOSS4G Map Gallery - which is your favorite?

https://2014.foss4g.org/map-gallery/

Global Migration 1990 to 2013

Origins and Destinations of the World’s Migrants, from 1990-2013 is a nice interactive map from the Pew Research Center: just pick you country, select into or out of, and you get a nice interactive map and matching data table. Only one thing is missing: a simple way to download the data!

NYC Data

This is impressive: any data set you can possibly imagine is available at NYC OpenData. You can map it, visualize, and export it in all kinds of formats - very cool!

Birds and Climate Change

The Audubon Society just released the Birds and Climate Change Report with incredible information, maps, and data on the future of 314 bird species. But the presentation is confusing and complex...I can't figure-out where to download the data (Nick Stockton @ WIRED did and created some great maps of the Bald Eagle and Turkey Vulture).

1000 Years in 3 Minutes

Embed YouTube Videos in Google Earth

Not sure why this is an issue...but here's what you need to do to embed YouTube videos in a Google Earth place marker:

Make sure you add http: (or https:) to the embed code you are given, for example:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/RebX7YEn3GQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> needs to be <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/RebX7YEn3GQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Same for the old embed code.

CLEAN

CLEAN is the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network with tons and tons of resources and teaching materials related to teaching climate and energy literacy.

• Informed Climate Decisions
• Teaching Resources (college, lower)
• Teaching Resources (college, higher)
• Teaching Materials
• Teaching Climate
• Teaching Energy
• Concept Maps

Losing Louisiana!

Here's a great web map / story map by the folks from ProPublica called Losing Ground that illustrates land losses in southeastern Louisiana due to climate change, subsidence, and oil/gas exploration.

10 Things...

...Every College Professor hates! (let me know if you want to hear more)

Just Playing In The Shale!

Or: Fracking in PA for Natural Gas

http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2014/09/fracking-in-pennsylvania-mapped.html

Hello Earth (from Mars)!

Great images of Earth from Mars!

 

Plus: here's a great map of Curiosity's 'road trip' across Mars!

John Sperling (University of Phoenix founder)

Marketplace ran an interesting piece about John Sperling, the founder of the University of Phoenix, who died recently at the age of 93.

MAGICC/SCENGEN

Another great acronym...MAGICC/SCENGEN is a coupled global climate model combined with climate change projections that you can download and run for yourself.

What are you doing - right now?

Busy States of America is quite cool: you can see in real-time how many people across the US are doing what (eating, sleeping, shopping, etc.). Plus, you can look at a typical American Day as a function of age, gender, and more.