Sustainability Social Studies Instructor: Thomas Chandler, PhD;

Sustainability & Social Studies

Instructor: Thomas Chandler, PhD;

2 billion people lacking eveningillumination or a  clean source of heat for cooking meals.

Urgent demand for energy

• Show chart of emissions from the U.S.

9 Billion People by 2050

5 planets needed

- City the size of Seattle forms every 5 days- Agricultural work declining

Unimaginable Problems

Pandemic Influenza1918: 100 million people died

• Cartogram…draught

• Cartogram…flooding

Images courtesy of Antonia LoyzagaManila Observatory

Typhoon Ketsana26 September 2009

2010 BP Oil Spill: Belief that technology can solve any problem

Solutions Also Unimaginable

• 3% of the Btu value of coal becomes usable light

• 5% of a palm oil plant gets used to make detergent

• 8% of the sugars in barley are fermented to make beer

• 0.2% of the coffee plant becomes the coffee we drink

We Manufacture “Waste” All Day, Every Day

Coal• The United States has the largest coal reserves in the world. • Coal is responsible for as much atmospheric carbon dioxide as all other fossil fuels combined• 52 U.S. Senators from coal mining states

Liquid Coal

Germany, South Africa

Politics

• Senators from coal states

Clean Energy?

• Nuclear: not enough uranium• Carbon Sequestration: only 30 years global

capacity...it could leak• Solar: Most potential, but solar cells too

expensive• Wind: Not enough land• Hydroelectric: Already tapped out• Geothermal: Not enough energy generated

Social Studies Textbooks

• “Profound disagreement” within the scientific community

• Questions whether the greenhouse effect itself “exists at all.”

• “Activist scientists”

Project learning tree: curriculum materials to more than 20 million U.S. students.

• Pew Research Centerhttp://pewresearch.org

- Gloom and doom message has not been Effective. Eg, 1988 Congressional Hearing

-Is it human nature not to care about slowMoving long term problems?

Middle School students reading various geography text books during class in 1927, at the University of Chicago Laboratory School. Emphasis on memorization. Difficult to layer data.

1980s: Databases, Not Easy to Interpret

1990s: GUI, Visualization

These four layers might be part of one city's geographic dataset. The layers all contain features located within the city's boundaries, but each one represents a distinct "theme."

Earth Sandwich

Map based problem solving has been done without digital tools for centuries.

John Snow: Cholera outbreakin London, 1854

© Edward Tufte

© David Rumsey, 2007

Public Policy:Digital mapping is used to enable policy makers

to more easily detect patterns pertaining to: - census demographics- public health concerns- crime- tax rates- transportation routes- pollution levels- real estate development- weather patterns- gas / electric power consumption- the impact of various types of natural and

human made disasters

2000 West Nile Virus Cases

2001 West Nile Virus Cases

2002 West Nile Virus Cases

2003 West Nile Virus Cases

© Ethnologue, 2007

Bangladesh

• Spatial Intelligencenot usedextensively in schools

• GeoBrowser• Social Networking• 3D drawings• Server based• Keyhole Markup Language (KML)

Key concept: Adding images regarding Hurricane Katrina

Key concept: Studying satellite imagery. “Before and after” images

Holly Beach, LA

2004

2005, after Hurricane Rita

Key concept: Analyzing historic maps in 3D: Eg, David Rumsey collection

Key concept: Adding video from YouTube

Key concepts: Visualizing census data to examine social vulnerabilities. This image displays a 3D visualization of the African American population in Louisiana.

New York City

Key concept: Using Sketchup to design better levees, pumps, and FEMA trailers

Key concept: Longitude and Latitude

Key concept: Analyzing the oil industry’s impact on Louisiana.

Key concept: Real-time mapping, viewing storm tracks and social vulnerabilities

Conclusion….