Everyone lives somewhere at some time. In a lifetime, some of us may stay in one place or culture, others may move and change places or cultures for family, work or political, reasons.
If we want to change our attitude towards the earth, it’s resources and our place on its surface, we must become more informed about our ‘geography’; not simply latitude and longitude, but rather ourselves and the processes that affect our behaviour. Geography, in an holistic sense, is physical, biological, economic and social. It is spatial and temporal: neighbourhoods, regions, countries and global; hours, days, years, decades, centuries, lifetimes and beyond.
What matters is that we creatively communicate and understand our geography through our spoken language, our writing, art, music, and technology. This means ‘geography education’.
This blog is for anyone who has an interest in geography education. This could include teachers, researchers, citizen-explorers of our environment and creative communicators. The blog is for action-oriented people who are undertaking projects and creatively communicating their geography.
Locally, I want readers seeking better relationship with the land and sea and the local economy. Provincially and nationally, I’m looking to policy- makers affecting economic and natural processes, whether rural or urban. Globally, I want readers to share experiences of alternative approaches in expressing their geography.
I have been concerned about our loss of geography education in our schools and about appropriate use of technology. Today, my interests include extreme citizen science, “making is connecting”, geography experiments in writing, visual imaging and maps, the Sand County Almanac and a land ethic.
In closing, expect some future blog posts to throw out challenges and discussion points to my readers — such as “A Yidan Education Workshop” and opening up “institutional Geography”.
Join me in this exploration of maker-geography and connecting the dots.
— Bob Maher
by Bob Maher
Ernest Blair Experiment 