Sunday marked the start of Geography Awareness Week 2008! Congrats to all of you hardcore geo-lovers
who got outside and did some geocaching,
or simply made time to appreciate the world around you. Today Geography Awareness Week gets down to
business (which in geography, is also fun), as it beings the first of five
“themed days.” We’re excited to kick off the week by looking at Human Geography
and Cultures.

Human geography examines people and their actions across the
globe. It looks at how culture, history,
language, conflict, political processes, and natural resource use interact to
create a complex and overarching narrative of place. Geographers understand the world as a series
of conversations at different spatial scales. While the people of one place manipulate
their surroundings or interact with the world abroad, they are equally
influenced by those forces.

Lucky for you, technology can help you understand these
global relationships from your desk chair via My Wonderful World’s brand new Geography Awareness Week
website.

You can download the KMZ Google Earth tour and
read stories from travelers abroad with the Glimpse
Foundation, or learn about different countries through the United Nation’s Cyber School Bus. Take a look at the most valued places in the
world through the World Heritage website, and
once you’ve studied, try your luck at the Friends
of World Heritage Trivia Game. Visit
sites like the Asia
Society or Geography
Action! and get great ideas on how to include human geography in your
school, or simply jam out to some great world music with Smithsonian Global Sound . You
can also go to the United Nations
Foundation website and learn how Ted Turner’s 1 billion dollar gift is
being used to support UN causes and activities. To finish, brush up on your cultural knowledge through Everyculture.com’s list of world
cultures, and see how many cultures you can recognize out of the hundreds this planet
sustains.

Keep checking back today for more geo-resources, and
thoughts from guest blogger Shawn Parell from the UN Foundation. But pace yourself! We still have the whole
week ahead!

And if you’re in the D.C./Virginia area tonight, don’t
forget about George Mason’s second annual “World
Ball Night!” Celebrate Geography Awareness Week with George Mason and
My Wonderful World as the Mason
Patriots take on the Brown Bears. Check out the exciting half-time program
including a video interview with Coach Larranana and a scrimmage between local
students. There will be student displays
of community GIS mapping projects, contest, raffles, prizes and free giveaways
of My Wonderful World gear. This is
surely an event you can’t miss!

George Mason University men’s basketball coach Jim Larranaga at last year’s World Ball Night.

Globe image courtesy American Management Association
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