Have you been looking for a game that combines the fun geography challenge of Traveler IQ with the social responsibility of FreeRice? Look no further. A site called FreePoverty allows you to identify locations on a label-free map while generating ad revenue that donates water to people around the world who need it. Enjoy!

I was doing pretty well at first, but my ignorance of Australian geography turned out to be quite a detriment on the higher levels. Crikey!

My nephew’s drawing made the local newspaper today.

I’m really impressed by the juxtaposition of the different objects in the picture. This is a kid who likes to make maps, which apparently stimulates spatial thinking, so maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise.

It’s been a while since I’ve really written anything, but I’ve been busy with a number of things, mostly work related. I’ve also been working on a new resource for this website which should be available shortly. Watch this space!

Last weekend, I attended a social studies conference that I’ve been meaning to write about. One of the speakers was Phil Gersmehl, who discussed the latest research in spatial intelligence. It seems that there are now believed to be eight different types of spatial intelligence, each housed in a different section of the brain. He suggested that geography education, at an early age, could help to strengthen these abilities. I say, it’s never too late.

Via The Media Dude, here’s a geography game that will help you practice your map skills. His brother, The Boy Wonder, points us toward an old Nintendo game called Warehouse 18, which is less about dexterity and more about using spatial thinking to solve visual puzzles.

And yeah, I’ve been pretty busy with these, too.

Do you think that the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire have an inordinate amount of power in deciding who the credible candidates are going to be in the presidential primaries?

Take the issue of ethanol, an alternate energy fuel that can be made from corn, which is one of Iowa’s chief agricultural products.

Ethanol fuel is not particularly efficient, and some even believe that it may use more energy to produce ethanol than the fuel provides. But both Republican and Democratic candidates must support ethanol to get any traction in Iowa. And you may disagree about the promise of ethanol, but we can never have a serious discussion about it as long as Iowa retains such a powerful voice in the presidential elections.

This is just one extreme example of the larger issue, which is that two states get to set the tone for the other forty-eight. From the financial districts in New York, to the wheat fields in Kansas, to the senior citizen centers in Florida, to the Mormon churches in Utah, to the cattle ranches in Texas, to the Hollywood community in California, to the indigenous peoples of Alaska and Hawaii, America is a panoply of voices and points of view. To bestow the coveted frontrunner status to candidates after hearing from only two out of fifty states seems like a subversion of democracy.

The general election is held in every state on the same day.

Should the primaries all be held on the same day?

You may want to use a map for this one…

Imagine the 2008 Republican primaries are over, and only four candidates won any states. (DC, which is not a state, went to Ron Paul.)

1. Mitt Romney won more states than any other candidate.

2. Rudy Giuliani’s states included Massachusetts and Washington.

3. John McCain won all of the states beginning with one particular letter, and only those states.

4. Fred Thompson’s states included New Mexico.

5. Strangely enough, no two bordering states went for the same candidate. (Four Corners does not count as a border.)

Who won in Michigan? How do you know?

UPDATE: Puzzle solved by David. See comments for solution.

This spectacular “blue marble” image is the most detailed true-color image of the entire Earth to date. Using a collection of satellite-based observations, scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations of the land surface, oceans, sea ice, and clouds into a seamless, true-color mosaic of every square kilometer (.386 square mile) of our planet. These images are freely available to educators, scientists, museums, and the public. This record includes preview images and links to full resolution versions up to 21,600 pixels across.

You can view the high-resolution image and more on the NASA website.

Just a few items I’ve been meaning to link to for a while now, but never could find the right context:

• Priests to Purify Site After Bush’s Visit - President Bush has apparently lost the Mayan vote.
• Germany GenWeb Project Map List - Here’s another collection of cool historical maps.
• ABC Plans Show Based on GEICO Caveman - It was entertaining for thirty seconds. Let’s try it for a season or two.
• D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y.com - Just in case you were wondering how to spell it.

While I was away, the Shakespeare Geek has been blogging up a storm. He always manages to find such great nuggets of Shakespearia in the digital forest. A few notable items that either I got from him, or he beat me to:

• There’s a new Showtime series on The Tudors with the first two episodes posted online. If this looks like it’s going to be any good, perhaps we will discuss it here, replacing the soon-to-be-retired Slings & Arrows thread each Sunday. What do you think?
• A map of almost all the places quoted in Shakespeare available in both Google Maps and Google Earth versions. This has some nice classroom applications, particularly in teaching history. Compare, for example, the relative locations of Pericles and Antony and Cleopatra around the eastern Mediterranean. Pericles takes place in the Hellenistic period, which came to an end with the events of Antony and Cleopatra, so comparing their relative locations can be useful. You know, for those times when you’re studying Pericles and Antony and Cleopatra. It was just an example.
• A somewhat new Shakespeare wiki. This looks like it’s going to be able to go much more in depth into Shakespeare than Wikipedia allows. I have to use the future tense, because right now it looks like the giant hole in the ground that is dug before a majestic building is erected. Can’t wait to see the view.
• Hamlet on trial for the murder of Polonius, presided over by a Supreme Court Justice, as part of the six month Shakespeare in Washington festival. I was in DC on Thursday, but missed the trial in favor of Richard III at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. But it caught my eye because my grad students have been talking about using the trial as a classroom activity. We’ve discussed the activity in connection with Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, and Measure for Measure.

There’s more stuff over there if you want to check it out. I like to link to him every now and then because I know there are some who come to this site looking for lots of cool Shakespeare stuff, and instead find postings about Venn diagrams, killer robots, and Charlie the Unicorn. His is the site you were looking for. But do come back tomorrow for the Thursday Morning Riddle.

Via the original creators of Charlie the Unicorn, it is my great honor to be able to share the German re-dub of Charlie the Unicorn.

Discuss.